Discovery
by Rouge18
Summary: With his high school graduation nearing, Michael Mules was going into the real world. To his surprise, as he makes an amazing discovery about himself, he's going into a real world he didn't know existed. OC story.
1. Introduction

Disclaimer: I do not own the world in which this story is placed in or any of the characters or events that are associated with the show. The original characters are of my creation.

_MICHAEL MULES - LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA_

"Michael Mules, get up!"

His mother's voice came through the closed bedroom door like a loud speaker. That helped to get her reluctant son out of bed. With a yawn, Michael pushed himself onto his feet. "I'm up," he yelled so she would stop yelling

"Then hurry up, you're late for school!" she told him as her footsteps began to fade away.

"And you won't have time to take a shower, so just wash your face and get dressed!"

"I guess I shouldn't have been watching that Superman movie marathon last night," he told himself, but hey, since he had a TV with cable hooked up in his bedroom, he would take advantage of it.

He quickly got dressed and went to wash his face in the bathroom. Michael took a minute to stare at his reflection in the mirror after drying his face; he did this often: trying to judge himself by what he saw.

Nothing bad, but nothing impressive either.

At eighteen, he had a scrawny figure, kind of bony like one of his sisters would say. He had a pale complexion that only added to the skeleton comments and his brownish-blond hair was recently cut short at the request of his family; they had complained about him letting it grow too long for six months. What Michael thought to be the best part of his appearance was his emerald-green eyes with their lines of gray.

Enough of that. Only real poor saps acted like this and his life was normal to say the least. What did he have to complain about?

He rushed to the kitchen with his backpack strapped on and he grabbed the plate of food on the table, not bothering to sit down.

His mother was leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee on one hand. "Don't forget a fork for the eggs."

"Mm hmm," was all he said through his bacon-filled mouth.

"Your father took the car and your sister went along with him to work, and I'm waiting on a coworker for a lift, so you'll have to walk to school," she told him. "Sorry."

"Isn't it unfair that they took what is technically my car," Michael said after swallowing his entire toast in one gulp. "Uncle John did leave it to me when he moved."

"It's officially yours when you actually pass your driver's test," his mother pointed out.

Michael's face fell. "Maybe I'd pass if my teacher could not have a panic attack when I'm on the wheel," he said a bit resentfully; that had come out more harsh than intended.

Clearly not wanting to start a fight about this, his mother just said, "Go to school."

He was already dashing for the front door in the next room, embarrassed of himself after that last comment. "Later."

His mother went back to zipping her coffee at the counter; then a minute later the phone sitting right beside her rang. She hoped it was her coworker saying she was on her way because she could not be late again.

"Hello, Mules residence," she said as she picked it up.

An elderly man's voice came out of the other end and he sounded maybe Indian. "Hello, Angela Mules?"

"Yes, this is she."

"I am Chandra Suresh. I'm calling about your son, Michael. You see I'm-"

A beeping came from outside, the man's voice trailed out of Angelas attention. She had to get going. Looking around, she couldn't find any pens or pieces of paper.

""Listen, I'm sorry but I need to leave right now," she explained. "If this is important, can you call the house back and leave a message on the answering machine."

"I suppose I could-"

"Great, I'll call you back when I get back home. Thank you, goodbye." Angela didn't like hanging up like that but the beeping continued outside.

* * *

On the other line, in New York City, Suresh hung up the phone and sighed.

"It's hard even to have a talk with these people," he said to Gabriel Grey who was sitting at a desk beside him, seeming earnest.

"Let's try the next person on the list," he said coolly.

* * *

After racing up a few floors, Michael would have breathed in relief when he reached the opened door to his first class, had he not lost his footing on the floor, sliding just as he came to the doorway and falling down on his back. The students who had seen him from inside erupted in laughter. A woman's head popped out from the side of the doorway, frowning when she saw Michael lying down on the floor.

"Inside Mr. Mules, quickly," Ms. Jones, his chemistry teacher instructed. "Luckily, you're late on the day that I'm in a good mood. I hope you didn't get written up at the entrance."

"Nope." Michael jumped back to his feet and rushed inside, sitting down on his desk in the front row corner.

"Smooth move, Mules," his classmate sitting behind him said aloud. Most of the class, except for a few sympathetic ones, started crying out "Heehaw!" Michael just waved his arm around in the air to them, as if he was trying to deflect their teasing away. At least after nearly four years of enduring that taunt, he had gotten somewhat used to it.

"Okay class, pay attention!" Ms Jones pointed to the white screen she had rolled down over the chock board where a faint image was showing from the slide projector at the other end of the classroom. Ms. Jones killed half the lights in the room and the image became much clearer. If Michael cared to look at the image, he would see that it was of some mapped out part of a human body.

Ms. Jones started walking back and forth in front of the class. "For the next week, we are going to be studying the different chemicals that reside within our own bodies. What their purposes are, how they react to contact with each other and outside chemicals. These things can change the body in good and bad ways."

With a remote in her hand, she changed the image to one of a bottle of some kind of medication.

"For example, this Aerophia is a new medicine that has only recently been put on the market," she explained. "The chemicals in it have certain properties that can tend to a number of stomach-related illnesses. Of course, I've heard that that wasn't what it was originally made for."

"What do you mean?" one student asked.

Ms. Jones hesitated before answering. "Well, a reporter put out a story about the Aerophia being developed with the intent to chemically enhance the body functions. Increase the senses, agility, things like that."

_Whoa_, Michael thought. So did the rest of the class apparently, as they were now paying attention to every word the teacher was saying.

"So the government actually tries to do stuff like that?" another student asked. "Make like super soldiers."

"It's just a story," Ms. Jones clarified.

Michael raised his hand. "So they don't do that kind of stuff, thinking it's possible?"

"Well, the chemistry of the human body changes. Some scientists even believe that through evolution, the entire biology of a person can alter enough for those sort of enhancement to happen." Ms. Jones ended her statement shrugging.

"But how exactly could that be possible?" Michael then asked.

"We're kind of getting off topic here. Let's get back to what Aerophia does to our stomach acid." As Ms. Jones got back to her original lecture, half the class went back to not paying attention, including Michael.

* * *

When lunch came, Michael sat with his friend Mark and his group of buddies that Michael didn't really hang out with.

"Did Ms. Jones tell your class about this Aerophia that was created to try and make super soldiers?" Michael asked him.

"She left the super soldier part out." Mark was only half-listening to Michael's choice of conversation.

"Wouldn't be surprising if the government was actually trying to do that," he continued saying anyways. "Still it would be cool to be able to do that kind of stuff: move like Spider-Man or hear a whisper from a mile away like daredevil or Superman."

Apparently, Mark was no longer really listening, but saying something to the person sitting on his right side.

"Hey Mark, it's time to meet Mr. Shames at the basketball court," one of the guys in their table said. "He challenged you, again right?"

"What can I say," Mark said in a grin and shrugging. "He's a teacher and he doesn't learn."

"Let's go then."

As the entire table stood up, Mark looked back to the friend he had been ignoring "Later, Michael." Then he and the rest of the group left the lunch area. _Thanks for asking me to come along, but I prefer just to stay here, alone._

After finishing his food, Michael just stayed on the empty table with his face covered in his hands, completely bored. H then felt a sudden flow of air blowing against his left ear that sounded like a gust of wind coming out of nowhere, but Michael only felt it on his ear. Was someone blowing at it?

Without even registering it in his head, he took his left hand off his face and swung his arm up to the side. The next instant, a hard object slammed against his opened hand. Michael looked and saw that it was a baseball. A freshman sprinted up to him from a table away.

"Hey sorry, I missed that throw," he said. "That was a sweet catch, though. Really good instinct, you caught it without even looking."

Michael handed him the ball without a word.

"You should tryout for the team next year."

"I'm graduating," Michael told him.

The freshmen shrugged. "Oh, well." He then went back to his table.

Not given it another thought, Michael looked at his watch and saw that there were still ten minutes left until the bell rang. Even though he wasn't interested in - or invited along to watch - the student-teacher match, there wasn't anything else to do. He grabbed his backpack, got up the table bench and tossed his food tray into the trash as he left the lunch area.

The freshman who had failed to catch the ball that had nearly hit him, meanwhile, was telling his friends, "-he just caught it without having seen the ball heading towards him." He looked back to Michael's direction as he was walking off. "The guy didn't even flinch."

* * *

The school's basketball courts were occupied by hundreds of students that were surrounding a single court, where Mark was dribbling the ball, facing Mr. Shames at the center.

Michael was a little surprised at how many people were interested in a little competition between a student and a teacher. He watched the game start from the outside walkway in the second floor of the building that stood right beside the basketball courts where it was less crowded.

Within only two minutes, Mark was in the lead by three. As Michael watched Mr. Shames manage another basket, his nose caught the fleeing scent that got stronger in his nostrils within seconds. It was tobacco. He looked to the distant left corner of the walkway, seeing a small group of black and grey-clothed students staring down at the game while inhaling their cigarettes.

_Where is a teacher or a cop when they should be around?_

The four smokers turned and disappeared into the side of the building's dark and secluded hallway. Even teachers and administrators avoided that small area. Michael found it unbelievable that they would look the other way, but he supposed every school had that little bit of territory that was just ignored for whatever reason.

No longer watching the game, Michael tapped his fingers on the walkway railing, looking to that corner, leading into the dark hallway. This was his senior year, and he hadn't really done any remotely daring in this school. So, he took a deep breath and walked down to the corner and into the hallway. It only briefly came into his mind: Why the other couple of students up here hadn't been bothered or even noticed the strong smell of those cigarettes. It had bothered the inside of his nose so badly.

There were no doors leading into classrooms in this hallway. The lights were dim and flickered constantly. Michael approached the group of smoking students at the corner. They all gave him evasive looks that made it clear they didn't like that he was here.

"Hi guys," he said kindly as if they were longtime friends. "Nice day, don't you think?"

"Is there something we can help you with?" asked the boy with the long-greasy hair.

"Well if I wanted a smoke, yes." He clasped his hands together and started tilting himself back and forth. "But I don't. Instead I wanted suggest to you that maybe you should quit this habit. It's a disgusting one, you know/"

The large kid in the group was looking at him with his sunken eyes, making Michael feel more uncomfortable "Didn't you tell me and some of my friends off a year ago?" he finally asked.

He did in fact distinctly remember this same group when he had been walking passed them. One had puffed a cloud of smoke at his face and another kicked him on the butt. "Yeah, that might have been me."

The one girl in the group, with black lipstick and nail polish walked up to him. "Take my advice and get lost, Mules," she said.

"I'm flattered you know my name . . . uh."

"Wendy, and it's easy to remember your last name when it's also our mascot," she explained, then added lightly, "Hee - haw."

"Just wanted to help you live longer," he told them all. The greasy-haired one blew a huge cloud of smoke to Michael's face from behind the girl, Wendy's shoulders. The horrible nicotine smell hit the inside of his nose like a well-placed punch. He began coughing uncontrollably and the group of smokers laughed.

"Just beat it," Wendy said after seizing her laughter.

"I guess I'll visit you guys in your hospital beds," Michael blurted before he could stop himself.

"What was that?" The greasy-haired one snarled, pushing passed Wendy. When a switchblade was in his hand a moment later, Michael knew that it was really time for him to beat it. He pushed the greasy-haired kid back and ran down the hallway, avoiding the large kid who jumped to grab a hold of him.

He should have gone back the way he came. Behind him, he could hear the group of smokers in pursuit. He leaped onto the stairway leading to the top floor in earnest. Boy, would he get it if they caught him.

* * *

As the group got to the stairway, the greasy-haired kid, Carl, yelled, "We'll go the other way!" to Wendy the large and huffing, Joe.

When they reached the top of the steps, Wendy and Joe went in the direction Michael had taken while Carl and Hank went around to cut him off. He had made the mistake of going in the route that would take him all the way around the building to the courtyard the top floor was connected to as it lay against a hill where part of the school grounds were.

Of course, Wendy knew Carl wasn't going to actually hurt him; he would just scare the guy like he did to anyone who got in his face. She speeded down the empty outside walkway, with Joe trailing behind because of his heavy weight.

"Pick up the pace, Joe!" she yelled as he fell farther behind. Rather than wait for him, she kept running as fast as she could and began to close in on Michael as he turned the second corner. They would get him here.

The pour guy made a desperate pull at a locked door, and then he darted for a three foot crate that was sitting outside a closed classroom door. Wendy realized that he was going try and climb up to the roof by grabbing a hold of the pipeline that was laid on the wall above the doors. She thought it would be funny to see him fall on his back.

When Michael put a foot on the crate, she was a mere five feet away from grabbing him. He then made his jump, but rather than reaching the pipeline, he zoomed passed it and then passed the wall. Wendy nearly tripped on herself as she saw him disappear over the wall. She halted in disbelief over what she had just seen. He popped his head out from the roof to stare back down at her for a moment before disappearing again. Joe and the others finally turned on the opposite corners at the same time and reached her.

"Where did he go?' Joe asked, gasping for long breaths at a time.

"We had him surrounded," Carl said. "What happened?"

"He . . . he." She tried to talk but the image of him soaring up onto the roof kept replaying in her mind.

"Wendy!" Carl shouted.

"He ran into and locked it shut."

The bell rang and that meant the walkway would be crowded with rushing students in just a minute.

"That guy for lucky. Let's go." Without another word, they all left the walkway.

Up on the roof, Michael stood with his hands on his knees and his upper body facing the roof floor. What in the world had just happened?

_To Be Continued_


	2. Abilities

Chapter 2 "Abilities"

_We all want to be good at something. It's a natural desire, to strive for greatness, in any way. Some talents we have are natural and others we learn. Of course, some talents - talents that are supposed to be impossible - show up out of nowhere._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

He ran without paying any attention to anything, as fast as he could to further the distance from him and the scene of his - well he didn't know what to call it. Michael raced with all his might to the railroad crossing and beat the long and slow-moving train by seconds.

When he jumped into the next crosswalk, he hadn't noticed that the signal lights were changing or a police car approaching, and the car stopped mere inches from a now frozen Michael. The officer driving poked his head out of the driver's window looking like he lost a long breath.

"Whoa, you should be more careful," he officer told him. "The sign changed before you even got off the sidewalk."

"Sorry, I was trying to beat it."

The police officer looked over his shoulder at the approaching traffic. "Just be more careful from now on."

"Gotcha." Michael ran to the other side of the street and breathed in relief. Dodging a second bullet, that was lucky, especially sense he didn't jump fifteen feet into the air this time, where there would be a street full of witnesses.

The rest of his run home had no holdups. Michael closed the door behind him and he dropped back against it with his lungs pounding at full capacity. Only now did he wonder about that girl - Wendy and her not spilling to her friends about his shocking escape. He put the thought aside and went into the kitchen, threw his jacket and backpack onto the table, and grabbed a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator.

Leaning against the counter, he noticed the answering machine had one new message and pressed the play button.

⌠Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Mules, I am Doctor Chandra Suresh," said the voice of an Indian man. "I'm calling to you about your son, Michael. You see I am a geneticist who is studying the genetic marker of a certain group of people."

Why in the world was this person calling them because of that? Unless, Michael thought, he might be talking about -

"You see, through the blood sample your son donated last year in a blood drive, I discovered that he is part of that certain group to have this rare genetic marker," the man - Chandra - continued. "If you would like to learn more about this marker, I can leave you my number -"

Michael quickly grabbed a pencil and paper from his backpack and wrote down the number as the man said it. When the message was finished, he erased it from the machine, not wanting anybody to hear it. Until he got an explanation about this for himself, he thought it to be too strange to share with anybody.

Whatever this was, he hoped it was good.

* * *

That night, he was in the privacy of his own bedroom and Michael finally got the courage to call this Dr. Suresh on his cell phone; his parents didn't need to know about a call to the other side of the country being made on the house phone.

"Hello," answered the same man from the machine. "This is Chandra Suresh, can I help you."

Breathing steadily, Michael started speaking. "Doctor Suresh, my name is Michael Mules, you called my house earlier. I wanted to talk to you about this - genetic marker that I have. You see, something's up with my body that I don't understand; it's something not normal."

"Mr. Mules, I'm glad you called." That was clear, from the sound of the doctor's excited voice. "What are these changes you are speaking of?"

He hesitated and looked to his bedroom door, thinking someone might be listening from the other side, then he shook the paranoia off. "You see, today at school there was this - I was being chased around by these punks, and I'm just going to jump onto this crate, then I shoot into the air and land on the roof of a building I must have gone sixteen, fifteen feet. That is not supposed to be possible, even for the best gymnasts in the world, right?"

"Yes, that is supposed to be physically impossible," Dr. Suresh answered, sounding even more interested by the minute. "Is that it?"

"Well, after thinking about today more, there was this thing about my nose nearly blowing out of me when a guy breathed a puff of smoke on me," he told him. "It felt more strong and awful than it should have. I literally wanted to rip my nostrils off of my face."

There was a short pause before Dr. Suresh replied back. "Michael, you seem to be displaying enhanced body functions," he told him.

"How is this happening?" Michael asked. "I haven't been exposed to radiation or been bitten by a radioactive animal."

Over the receiver, he thought he heard the older man laughing very lightly. ⌠It would take too long for me to explain it all over the phone, but I have a book that I wrote on all of this. It has a chapter on increased physical attributes. Do not worry, it isn't written in a - how you say - nerd language. It explains everything quite well."

"Alright, I'll check it out." Michael wrote the name of the book down and sighed in uncertainty. It looked like there wouldn't be a simple answer to this.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked into the phone.

"Just know that you have a special calling in the world, Michael," Doctor Suresh told him, sounding very caring and kind. "I cannot tell you what to do with these knew found abilities; you must choose for yourself how to put them to use."

Great, so the doctor was the type of person who let the confused learners figure things out for themselves. What would he have to do, go to New York to get some better guidance from this man?

"Just know that I am always here for you to contact," Doctor Suresh told him. "I have made it my life's mission to find people like you and to help discover your potential."

All right, now he was being more guiding. "Okay then. I'll get your book. Then I'll call when I've read everything. If you want to reach me, use this number. I can't have my family find out about this - at least not yet."

"Understood, we will speak again soon, I hope." With an exchange of goodbyes, they both hung up and Michael stayed lying down on his bed for a long time, not sleeping, just pondering in his mind of what was to come next.

* * *

So that weekend, Michael bought the Dr. Suresh's Activating Evolution at a Borders store and began reading on the bus ride home, then continuing to do so secretly in his bedroom during. Ordinarily, he was one to read fantasy books, like Star Wars and Harry Potter; his family would mock him for only being into unrealistic writing like that. But Chandra Suresh's book made those pieces of fiction seem not so far out there.

By the end of that weekend, Michael had read the entire book from cover to cover. All of it was both fascinating and jaw dropping.

The chapter, 'Increased Physical Attributes', concerned specifically him. According to Dr. Suresh's studies, Michael's physiology was enhanced to a completely new level that not even the best known of athletes of any kind were in. His agility, reflexes, and senses - they were all enhancing in their capacity. The way Michael saw it, his abilities were a combination of Spider-Man and DareDevil - minus the radar sight, web shooting, and crawling on walls.

He might even posses a strong durability in handling pain better that a normal person. Of course, at the end of the chapter, Doctor Suresh advised careful exercise to better handle these abilities. He stated that the body and mind needed to be trained to handle the use all of these enhancements.

"Okay then. I guess I need to start working out," Michael said to himself after finishing the chapter.

Locked in his room, Michael started to blindfold himself and just lay down on his bed quietly; he figured that if he blocked one sense, another would be able to magnify itself. For the first few days that he tried this method, there was no difference.

Then on the forth night when not only did he have his eyes blindfolded but he was also wearing earplugs, was there a change. First, his nose was inhaled by the usually light smell of the ceiling dust, then there was the distinct scent of his sister, Missy's hairspray from the bathroom down the hall, as she was preparing herself for a date. Then he could smell the gratifying chocolate being warmed in the kitchen.

This new progress earned him a break. He raced over to the kitchen as his mother was pouring the finished pot into several cups.

"Hot chocolate ready, then?" he said grinning for more than what Angela knew about.

"Yeah - Michael are you wearing earplugs?" she asked bemused.

_Whoops!_ Michael removed the earplugs with a red face. "Uh yeah, you know, Q-tips can actually impair your hearing."

His mother said nothing in response to that and just handed him his cup.

Back in his bedroom, he put the earplugs back blindfolded his eyes once again.. Now that he had the cup of hot chocolate with him, the smell was much stronger. There might as well have been trees full of cocoa beans in the room.

Then that warm smell was joined by a scent that was repulsive and all too familiar to Michael. He left his bedroom again and followed the smell to the bathroom, which was locked. Just as he suspected. He knocked on the door, and he thought he heard his sister, Missy curse under her breath.

"Hey, Missy, how long are you going to take in there?" he asked.

"Just a second," she said over the air fresher she was spraying.

The door then opened and his older sister came out in haste.

"It's all yours," she said and walked towards the stairs.

"I'm not going to tell anybody, if you promise to stop," he then said, without leaving the spot where he stood.

"What?" Missy looked back to him.

"You can stop now, Missy, and it will be easy to," he told her. "Don't deny what was going on in there - I've seen you before. I just hope you've so far stuck to just that weed or whatever it is, exactly."

Missy's face went from confusing to angry. "Have you been spying on me?"

"Haven't had to. You're not good with secrets."

"Just but out," she said quietly, but viciously. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Without another word, she turned and went down the stairs. That didn't go as well as Michael had hoped. He would just have to try again with her, later.

* * *

That next day during lunch, he stayed in an empty hall, sitting cross-legged at a corner with his eyes closed. He tried to hear all the noise from outside students talking, balls bouncing off the ground repeatedly, the different pairs of feet as they walked across the grounds.

But hardly of that reached his ears, mostly the faded voices of the loudest of people that could be heard by anyone from where he was. This wasn't working.

_I just need time_, he thought to himself. It would take a while for his abilities to come at his command, but he had to remember that he might not have all the physical powers described in the book. Doctor Suresh wrote that only certain parts of his body might enhance. Still, Michael remembered how he had caught that baseball last week. He knew he had heard the wind so strongly as the ball had closed in.

He just had to keep practicing.

"Hey, there you are," someone said from out of nowhere.

Jumping up to his feet, Michael looked to the direction of the stairway; Wendy was approaching coming from there.

"Hey look I -" he started to blurt out but she cut him off.

"I've been looking for you since last week," she said decisively. "But it looks like you've been hiding. I guess you were expecting me to yell out what I saw you do."

"What you saw me do?" _Just need to keep it cool._

"Don't even go to playing dumb," she said with exasperating force. "You jumped from the floor to roof like . . . A frog."

Michael didn't say anything.

"I may not watch the Olympics but I still know that's not normal," she said.

This girl just wouldn't let it go. Michael needed to think, quickly if he was to get her off his case.

"The wind caught me as when I jumped." It actually manages to sound like a he believed.

However, Wendy's decisive stare didn't change. All right the, he liked staring contests. Their gazes met, and Michael didn't break contact with her dark green eyes, which he wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't left her black eye shadow off today, and her lipstick wasn't that heavy, either.

Wendy didn't really look that bad. Her pale complexion even suited her face. She could look pretty if the girl wanted to.

Finally, she blinked.

"Just leave me alone. You don't know what you saw and you can't prove anything if you are thinking of saying something," he pointed out. "They'll just think you're nuts."

Picking up his backpack, Michael headed for the stairway.

"I'm not going to stop bugging you about this," she assured him as he reached the steps.

Great. He would just to avoid her until graduation, then.

* * *

_What we're capable of will determine much of our lives. To the best of our abilities we strive for meaning in everything we do. There are many types of skills that people can have, and that will bring us a complicated yet exciting life. Maybe a kind of life we weren't expecting._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_

**Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews and for the advice on my writing. I need to remember not to depend soely on spell check. I'm glad that you like the my story and I hope you keep enjoying it..**


	3. Identity

Chapter 3 "Identity"

_It's one of the greatest mysteries that we all try to solve. You would think that would be an easy one to figure out - who you are. We spend most of our lives in this mystery. Yet for whatever reason, it's a hard answer to find, but at the same, it can be a simple one._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

After his unsettling encounter with Wendy, Michael was once again lost in his thoughts during his English class, and this was normally where he shined, since most of his life was about finding interesting stories, whether in a book, movie, TV show, or even videogames. This was where his interest lied.

But now, he just couldn't get out of the secret room where these abilities were. But so far, that didn't seem to effect the rest of his life, which actually made him feel sore.

"Macbeth has now not only killed the king he's supposed to be loyal to, but he also killed his friend to keep the throne," Ms. Kinger his English teacher was saying. "What do you guys think of him now as?"

"He's the bad guy now," Mark answered.

"Yes, he's pretty much taken the identity of the villain in this story. So what;s led to this change?" She walked down Michael's aisle of desks and stopped in the middle. "Michael, you haven't talked all week. Would you like to explain this one?"

Michael blinked in a bit of a startle. "Um, well. He's obviously been corrupted by the power he now has. He sees his friend as a threat and is now willing to do anything to keep his power."

"Thank you, Michael." Ms. Kimger started circling the students as she continued speaking. "You see once he became king, he didn't want to lose that identity and the greatness that came with it. You see that's a big part of what drives character's in stories, they want to keep that position they have. For them, it's who they are."

Who they are.

For the rest of the class, Michael didn't really pay anymore attention to the lesson. Instead he thought about what Ms. Kimger had said about the identity of the characters.

After school, he walked home feeling an unexplainable numbness about everything in his life. This feeling wasn't anything new. As a matter a fact, the closer he came to finishing school, the more this numbness manifested itself.

This part of his life would soon be over and despite what he now knew about himself, he didn't have a clue as to what to do with himself.

His identity as a child and student would soon be done. Then he would be - what? This person who could jump like a frog. Who was he? What was his title or status in the world?

As he walked down the sidewalk, a car beeped several times, sounding louder each time as Michael heard it come from behind him. He turned around and saw that it was Mark's car. His friend waved as he drove passed and then disappeared at the corner of the street.

"Thanks for offering me a ride, Mark," he said with sarcasm and a bit of spite. "Glad to know we're good friends."

He didn't fit here, that much was clear. Even before the discovery of his abilities, he always felt that way. People around here seemed to make it quite clear.

When he arrived at his house, he found his mother sitting at the kitchen table alone, with a plate of cookies, untouched. She looked at him with a distinct impressions that made Michael figure she had been waiting for him to come home.

"Hey, can you sit down, son?" she asked softly.

"Yeah. What's up?" he asked as he sat down next to her.

"I've been wanting to talk to you." She stood and went over a cabinet. "Do want some milk?"

"Sure." In his head, Michael knew that his mother wanted to have one of those life talks with him. He picked up a cookie and started turning it around between his fingers until his mother came back to the table with a glass of milk.

"Michael, you're less than two moths away from graduating, after that you're in the real world," she proclaimed. "When I was eighteen, I married your dad, and I don't regret that decision. I've had more than twenty years of wonderful times with this family. Nowadays, though, it's not that simple. I know you want something else for your life besides what your father and I have had, and that's what we want for you, too. But because you don't want to go to college-"

He had hoped she wouldn't go there. "Mom, please-"

But Angela put a finger up, indicating her right to speak. "No, you need to hear this. You said before that you don't know what you want out of your life, yet, and that college just wasn't what you have the drive for - as you s\put it. But honey, college is the place to figure these things out. Can't you see that this would be an easier road for you?"

Michael rubbed his forehead, trying to think of something to say as a counter to her argument.

"Mom, I know you and dad want better for me, but college is no guarantee that I'll figure things out," he told her. ⌠Look at Irene, she spent four years in a junior college and she doesn't seem have figured much out. I just don't see myself going through junior college and then to a four year school to get a degree in whatever. I just don't see it as my route to self-discovery."

Angela sighed. She wasn't getting anywhere with her son. "Okay, but have you made any other plans for yourself. You keep talking about this road trip but you haven't made any progress on that."

"I know, but still, I know what isn't right for me."

His mother frowned at him. She was clearly displeased with his standing on the next step for his life. She had always thought him to be the most stubborn of her four children.

"Michael, I'm sacred for you. Look at Missy -"

When his mother broke off after saying her name, Michael caught the slide in one of her eyes, as if she was thinking back on something that had to do with his sister.

"Mom, what about Missy? I know she's been out of it with her bad choice of boyfriends and stuff but-"

"She came clean to us, Michael. I know you caught her the other day in the bathroom," she finally said.

Now Michael hadn't seen that coming. He wondered if maybe his confronting Missy about her problem had gotten her to tell the truth. Whatever the reason, the point was she had admitted her faults to their parents. That was a step for her.

"Look mom, I told her to quit, or else I would've told you guys," he told his mother. "If she had kept it up or started later on, I was going to blow the whistle."

"I know, but Michael, the way Missy has been for this last year has gotten me thinking about where you might end up."

Now it seemed more clear to Michael about why his mother was talking to him about this. When one child made bad choices, the radar went up on all of them.

"Mom, I'm not Missy. I think you can trust that I know what to not get myself into," he said as assuring as he could make himself be.

His mother's frown didn't go away, though.

"Michael, you've always been the independent one in this family. Your dad always called you his little rebel when you were younger, but that rebelliousness might not be a good thing now."

She just wouldn't quit with this. All Michael needed to do was to talk to her about this sort of thing to make his situation feel even worse. This was why he felt so out place, even in his family.

"I'm going to go do my homework."

Without another word, he stood and walked out of the kitchen.

Angela stayed in her seat, thinking that this planned out talk was now a failure. Until he would be one himself, her son just wouldn't understand how much a parent thought of his or her child's life and worried for them so fearfully.

_God guide my son to a good path_, she prayed in her head.

* * *

In his bedroom, Michael fell onto his bed in a slump. This day just felt like one of those days, as people said. Now all he wanted to do was lay here and sleep out the rest of it.

A ring came from his cell phone, which was on his nightstand. Michael had to will himself to the end of his bed to reach for the phone and answered in a sore voice.

"Tell me you're an insatiably hot woman who wants to runaway with me," he blurted.

"Michael, are you all right?" answered a familiar voice. "It's Chandra Suresh."

The laziness in Michael's body suddenly diminished and he spun up to a seating position.

"Doctor Suresh. I'm glad you called," he said a bit embarrassed.

"Since you hadn't called after last week, I became worried."

"I'm sorry. I've been distracted. So anyways, I read the whole book, and I'm blown away," he said excitingly. "Can we talk about it right now."

"How about we talk about it later, face-to-face?" Dr. Suresh suggested.

* * *

That next day, Michael told his parents he would be staying late at school to study, but instead he was at a small burger restaurant where he thought it convenient to meet Dr. Suresh. He waited for ten minutes at a booth in anxiety over finally meeting this man face-to-face.

He watched the entrance until finally, the same Indian man whose picture was on the book came through. The doctor knew it was Michael as he was the only one in the restaurant. He approached the youngster with similar anxiety; this was the first person he was meeting after Gabriel - or Sylar as the man now wanted to be called.

"Hello Mr. Mules," he said kindly.

"Doctor Suresh. Hi. You can just call me Michael." Michael rose from his seat and shook hands with the man.

"Well then, shall we sit?"

"Yes. I already ordered some fries, I don't know if you eat those-"

"I love fries, actually."

The two sat down opposite of each other, silent for a long and uncomfortable moment.

"So Michael, how has it been since we last talked?" Dr. Suresh asked.

"Well, I've been practicing with my abilities," he explained, wanting to sound impressive. "My smelling is getting stringer; I picked up things from all over the house while just sitting in my room."

"That's impressive. What about with your other senses?"

Michael shrugged a bit disappointment with himself. "Nothing really. I've been trying, especially with my hearing, but nothing."

"You shouldn't feel discouraged." Dr. Suresh went silent for the few moments that the smiling waitress had come to their table with a basket of french fries. ⌠It can take time for all of your abilities to manifest themselves."

"It's been hard being able to practice anything else without getting caught." Michael laid back against the seat's cushion and rubbed his face. "I don't think I can tell my family. They're the normal-normal type of family. They'd probably want to go with the status quo with this."

"I can understand the fear of telling them this." Dr. Suresh started picking at the basket of fries in between his words. "You must forgive me, I didn't have much to eat in the plane."

"I know, you just had orange juice and a pretzel," Michael proclaimed. "You didn't wash your mouth or anything before you came here, did you?"

For moment, Dr. Suresh sat there in a silence of surprise. He then laughed at the young man's little remark of humor.

"So, I'm not the only who has abilities, right?" That was a question that Michael wanted to have cleared. Maybe once he met others who were different, he wouldn't feel so alone.

"No. There are others. I have been working with one in finding more of you, as a matter of fact," Dr. Suresh told him. "Unfortunately, he is consulting with another person like the two of you."

"What can he do?"

"Sylar can move things with his mind - he's quite good at it. He was the first of your kind that I found, and right in New York."

"My kind, I'm not a different species," Michael said a bit disturb by that concept.

"Of course you're not. You are a human just like everyone else, but you are a different sort of human," Dr. Suresh said charismatically. "You and Sylar and others like you can change the world, Michael."

"How do we go about that in my case?"

"Well, that is up to you." Dr. Suresh thought for a moment before continuing. "Seeing as how your abilities are based on physical action, you suit well for a police officer or a soldier."

Michael frowned in uncertainty. "I don't know if I'd feel comfortable with something that involves shooting people. I've never been much for following orders and I say both jobs have too many rules. I mean look at how the world is. Nothing against those guys, but their way isn't making the it too much better."

"Well then, you'll just have to find different means to use your abilities," Dr. Suresh said.

The two men sat in silence for a long minute and also ordered drinks. Michael felt like there was still so much to understand.

"Thanks for helping me with this," he finally said to the doctor. "It must have been - destiny that you call my house on the same day that this stuff starts to show up."

The elderly man smiled. He definitely had warmness about himself. "I'm glad to be able to help give you some guidance, Michael. I have dedicated my life to finding people who can do things that are supposed to be impossible. Meeting you has been a pleasure, and I know you will find your way."

Now the man was just being too kind. Michael thought about what his parents might say if he revealed this to them. The scene played out in his head in several different ways. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that perhaps they were better off not knowing.

"Sense before this started happening, I had been so confused about who I'm going to be in my life. At first, this made it seem like I didn't have to wonder anymore." Michael looked out to the window at the passing traffic on the street. "Now I'm still not sure."

"Michael, it is a mystery, no matter what. I know I'm still unsure about my own identity sometimes," Dr. Suresh confessed.

His words made him feel a bit less frustrated. The two continued to talk about the people out there who were special like him, and then changed to numerous other subjects, Michael now began to feel more and more relaxed than he had felt in a long while.

* * *

_Maybe we need to sit back and just think for a moment on our actions and decisions and what we've done with our lives. Maybe the answer is there. Maybe the answer is always changing as we change. They can probably be simple sometimes, and then difficult. When we do find ourselves, the journey turns out to be one of interesting storytelling._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	4. Control

Chapter 4 "Control"

_We all feel like our lives are not entirely in our own hands. That feeling makes us insecure, afraid. How much of our lives do we have a say in, and how much of it is already decided for us._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

Within the next week, May began, and Michael continued to work in secret with his abilities. While in school, he concentrated on the work as best he could to ensure him graduating in the following months, and then he would be in the real world doing - what exactly? Even with these growing powers, he still didn't know what he was going to do.

Joining the circus or some acrobatic show popped into his head, but that idea didn't seem appealing to him. Before all this had started, he had been thinking of working fulltime and saving up for a world tour; that still seemed like the best idea he had thought of.

Focusing on in the present, he still had to get ready for his driver's test, study for finals, get the nerve to find a date for prom, and he also had to keep dodging Wendy. The girl wasn't quitting on getting some sort of explanation from him. She had gone as far as waiting outside his classes when he got out and she even tried following him home.

"That Wendy chick asked me for you cell number," Mark told him in the lunch line. "She said you owed her an iPod after breaking her old one."

"You didn't give it to her, did you?" he asked, holding his breath.

"No, but you know what, without all the black makeup, she's not bad-looking." Mark poked his elbow at Michael's arm. "She clearly has the hots for you and since prom is three weeks away . . ."

"Don't even joke," Michael said as he slid his lunch card through the register's computer. "Even if I liked her, a girl like that wouldn't be caught dead at a dance."

"Didn't you say you would find a date by all means?" Mark pointed out.

"I'll worry about that later." The two sat down at their usual table with Mark's usual group of friends. "Today I'm taking my driver's test, again."

"Third time's a charm," Mark remarked and he started talking to one of the guys on his other side, his back turned to Michael.

A few hours later, Michael was exiting his car with his examiner at the DMV. His face had a large grin on it.

"I passed," he told his mother who was waiting at the entrance, as if it was no big deal.

"Congratulations." Angela had a set of keys in her raised hand. "The car is officially yours."

The second the keys dropped pm his hand, Michael felt a sense of great freedom. The sky was the limit now, at least for him, partially.

"I suppose you'll be going to meet your friends after you drop me off at home," Angela said.

Not really, but he was definitely going to cruise Los Angeles for a few hours. So he drove back to the house and his mother went inside alone, after advising him not to return home late, even if it was a weekend night.

Driving down the street, Michael stopped at the intersection in awe: a man was standing in the middle of the crosswalk He was dark-skinned and balled, with a stone-face expression.

"Hey man, it's not a good idea to be standing there," he said through his opened window.

The man didn't move, he just continued staring at him. Suddenly, Michael was feeling a pierce of pain on his neck and his sight was becoming blurry. What was happening to him? As his sight began to blacken, he turned his gaze outside of his window. There was another man approaching his car. He was in a suit and had horn-rimmed glasses.

"Hello Michael," he said coolly. "I'm happy to meet you."

* * *

When his eyes opened, there was just a blur at first, then it cleared into a ceiling of pale-blue. Once his thundering head ceased, Michael tried to move, but he couldn't; he felt like he was trapped - no, he was trapped. He realized that his body was lying on a hard mattress and long-thick belt were strapped on his arms and legs.

What was going on? How did he get here? Who was behind this?

A man came into his view - the man with the horn-rimmed glasses, standing beside him with a stone expression on his face that made him so intimidating.

"Glad you're awake, Michael," he said as if he was a doctor, caring for his sick patient.

"Where am I?" seemed like the most logical question to ask.

"Don't worry, you haven't been harmed in any way," the man assured him.

Only now did Michael hear the beeping sound of a heart-monitor. He saw that there were several lined-pads attached to his chest and head; one of his arms was also hooked to a tube that led to a bag of fresh-looking blood - his blood.

He also noticed the same bald-headed man standing behind his fellow kidnapper. "Who are you people, and why are you doing this?"

"We're just interested in what you can do," the horn-rimmed glasses man told him.

"This is kidnapping," Michael blurted as he pushing at his restraints, trying to break free. "Let me go and I won't tell anybody about this."

That was pointless, Michael knew it before he even said it.

"We will let you go," the man with the horn-rimmed glasses said. "Now I'm going to put your phone to your ear so you can listen to what a friend of mine is going to tell you, which is to tell your family that you're going to be home late and not to wait up."

"Or what?" Michael snarled to her.

"Or nothing." He took out his cell phone. "You are going to do what she tells you to do without question."

The man with the horn-rimmed leaned down to him, Michael's distraught face reflected in the lenses.

"Don't worry, within a few hours you will be back home, safe and sound," he told him. "You are special to us, Michael. So we'll be watching you."

Michael swallowed hard. He didn't like the sound of that, not one bit.

* * *

"Michael. Michael, wake up."

"What - what - what's going on?" Michael awoke on his bed with a serious headache fit for a hangover, only he had never touched any alcohol in his entire life, and had sworn never to touch it.

"Michael, it's close to one in the afternoon," his mother said from outside his door. "What time did you get in last night?"

"Last night?"

He tried to recall, but couldn't, and not just what time he had returned home, but he couldn't remember anything. As hard as he could, the last thing Michael could recall was leaving his mom at the house after passing his driver's test.

What was that about?

His bedroom door was knocked on multiple times, rapidly.

"I'm up!" he shouted.

"I've got lunch ready," his mother said. "It's on the table."

As Michael heard her loud and aching footsteps disappear, he tried even harder to recall what in the world he did last night after passing his test, to no avail. Giving up for now, he changed out of his cloths from yesterday and went to the kitchen where his sisters, Irene and Missy were sitting down on the table eating grilled-cheese sandwiches, while their mother was washing dishes.

"About time you woke up," Irene said, shaking her head. "You went wild o the first night with your license."

"Shut up." Michael sat down in-between them where his plate was set and took a bite out of his sandwich.

"Oh my God. What is that on your neck?" Missy poked at the back of Michael's neck without warning.

"Quit it." He pushed her arm away; as always, one minute with his sisters and they already got on his nerves.

Missy wouldn't quick moving her gaze away from the back of her brother's neck to examine whatever she was seeing. "At first, I thought it was a hickey, but it looks like two lines - or an equal sign."

"What do you mean, Missy?" Angela came up behind Michael and looked at where her daughter was looking at. "Michael August Mules, did you get a tattoo?"

"No, I didn't even know it was there until Missy saw it," he protested.

"I hope this washes off," she said, licking her fingers and desperately rubbing her them on the thing.

"Mom, stop, please."

"Let me see," Irene said. She grabbed Michael's head, trying to turn the back of it in her direction.

At this, he jumped off his chair, waving the three women away. "Just stop, okay." He leaned out to the table to grab his sandwich and then walked out of the kitchen. "I'll take care of it."

When he was gone, Missy said bluntly, "I worry about that boy."

Michael rushed to the bathroom and locked himself in. At the mirror, he turned his head and darted his eyes to the side, spotting the small mark with great difficulty. How had this gotten there, and from where did it come from?

_Is this why I can't remember anything from last night?_ he wondered.

This was getting more and more strange: first Michael has these new-found powers, now more than half a day is gone from his memory and there's a strange mark on him.

He considered this being connected. Considering it? No, it had to be put down as a fact, really. That fact, of course, could also mean that he was in trouble - real trouble.

* * *

For the rest of that weekend, all Michael could think about were the missing hours in his memory from that evening, or possibly the whole night. Where could he have been? Why didn't he remember? How did he get that mark?

On Monday during lunch, Michael was sitting with to Mark during lunch, when he thought to ask something. "Did you and I hang on Friday night and drank something spiked or something."

Mark looked at him in bewilderment. "No. Why do you think we did that?"

He hesitated before he explained to Mark about his lost memory.

"Are you sure you didn't get dunk?" he asked Michael.

"You know I made an oath never to touch the stuff."

"Why don't you just put your mind on prom," Mark suggested. "Eighteen days and counting."

"Have you got a date, Mark?" Michael groaned.

His friend didn't answer. The first thing that would have been on Michael's mind - if he wasn't working on his powers and trying to remember a forgotten night - would be prom. Maybe that was a good thing. If he had time to be concerned about acquiring a date, he would just be enduring harsh rejection from girls, like all the other times a pursued one.

The bell rang, Michael said bye to Mark and left the lunch area. Walking through the courtyard in the crowd, he spotted Wendy standing perfectly still, except for when people brushed passed her inconsiderately┘ She didn't take her gaze away from him, even when people blocked her view.

Stopping to stare back at her, Michael debated his options. Sighing, he slowly approached her once the crowd of students was thinning out. If this girl wanted to talk, okay then. When he came within two step from her, he asked her, "So what's your reason for being interested in my - abnormality?"

"Because for once, there is something amazing going on here," she answered him. The sincerity in her voice touched Michael.

"Alright then. You want in, I'll tell you everything that I know," he said.

For the first time in what Michael thought might possibly be a long time, she smiled brightly.

* * *

That afternoon, Michael drove to a place Wendy was directing him to from the passenger's seat. They left the public street into an alleyway of an old-looking warehouse. Michael had the impulse to get out here, out of fear of being tricked by Wendy and getting attacked by her group of smoke-for-brains.

"Wait here, this will be a good place," she said. Getting out of his car, she went to a large door and slid it open enough for Michael's car to go through.

He drove inside and Wendy pushed the door closed behind him. The warehouse was pretty much a wide space with square pillars going from the floor to the ceiling high above. Bright light came from the connecting windows at the top of the walls and there was a maze of catwalks twenty feet above them. Other than that, it was completely empty

"This place is completely abandoned," Wendy told him when he got out of the car. "If you want to train with your abilities, this is the place."

"How do you know about this place?" he dared to ask her.

The girl hesitated a moment, then she explained, "I come here sometimes when I don't want to get caught doing things."

"Okay then." Michael wasn't going to ask for anymore of an explanation. "I guess now is as a good a time as any to get started."

A grin formed on Wendy's face. She took his hand and pulled him over to the middle of the warehouse.

"Stand right there," she instructed him. "Give me your keys - don't worry, I promise I am not going to steal it. I would just beat you unconscious than go though this much trouble."

That sounded relatively funny, except it was aimed at him. He gave Wendy the car keys and she ran back to it. Getting inside, she started the engine and the tires began to spin but the car start moving at first, then it shot off from its parking spot, straight towards Michael.

At first he was panicked but instinct took over a miller-second before the car reached him; his knees bended and he shot off the floor, barely avoiding the collision with his own car.

Before Michael's very eyes, he saw the floor become more and more distant, raising his gaze, he saw the catwalk right in front of him before being pulled back down by gravity. Rather than swinging his arm and legs in fear, his body got into a crouch, landing on the floor with a light clank.

"Cool." That was the word that seemed to fit. Wendy came out of the car and ran back to him.

"Amazing," she said in excitement. "Simply amazing. You were like Spider-Man, or something."

"How did you figure trying to run me over would help?" he asked her.

"You said you hadn't managed to do it since the first time," she explained. "So I figured maybe a sense of desperation was what you needed."

Now Michael laughed, lightly. "Well . . . Good thinking."

They were silent for a moment before Wendy blurted, "This is the start of something . . ."

"But of what?" Michael asked. That question had been dawning on his mind since all this had started.

His eyes met with Wendy's attentive stare that showed wonder and excitement.

"Of something important."

* * *

_We all want control over our livs, to make things how we want it, but that isn't always possible, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. New and important things can come to us out of what we don't see for ourselves. Also for the parts of our lives we do have control over, we had better hope we are managing it in a good way._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	5. Bravery

"Chapter 5 "Bravery"

_To be fearless, whether in a small struggle or in a great danger is something we all want. That can be difficult for some, of course. We hope we can be courageous for whatever reason, we pray for it. Then if we fail to be fearless, that makes it less likely it will be different some other time._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

The day after Michael confided in Wendy, they went to the warehouse again, and he brought Chandra Suresh's book. While he was jumping - or rather hopping - around the warehouse, onto and over the catwalks, testing his stamina, Wendy was sitting on the hood of his car, reading the book.

"So your senses, have they gotten better?" she shouted to him, as he had just landed back on the floor on the other end of the room.

"A little!" He then started running back in her direction. "My sense of smell, mainly! Still working on the others."

Midway across the room, he launched off the floor once again, spinning himself backwards as he went over another catwalk.

"There's another chapter on people being able to fly," she said in awe. "Can you imagine there being people who can actually do all these things."

"Amazing, huh?" Michael said when landed back on the floor.

Flipping back to the start of the book where the directory was, Wendy looked through the different chapter titles. "Mind reading, telekinisis, spontaneous regeneration. These things are actually possible."

Michael walked back to his car and sat on the hood next to her as she continued to flip through the pages.

"There's even a chapter on being able to see into the future," he told her. "If I had the chance, I might trade my powers for one of those."

Wendy looked at him, narrow-eyed. "Don't bring yourself down. You can jump higher than any other person, and in time you'll be able to hear a faint whisper from a mile away."

"I amaze you that much?"

He laughed a bit and she joined in, knocking her shoulder at his. Michael couldn't recall when he had last felt so relaxed around someone. Maybe just with family. To think that the two of them had not even known the other existed a month ago. It probably had to do with the crowds they were in.

"Say, have your friends asked about where you've been disappearing to?"

This question caused Wendy's grin to dim. She drew her gaze around the large and empty room for a long moment.

"Those guys aren't really my friends," she finally admitted, stuttering. "We just smoke together. Truth is you're the person who I've had the longest conversation with."

Now Michael looked at her with narrow eyes.

"Come on. You're telling me that you hardly talk to your parents at home? He asked in disbelief. "Or any family member?"

"It's just me and my parents. My dad is a total hick and my mom spends half of everyday kneeling in front of her Jesus shrine. They're not even married." In a pause, she rolled her eyes. "I know my mom just stays with him to have a roof over her head and my dad just wants someone to do the cooking and cleaning."

Swallowing hard in shock over Wendy's revelation, Michael tried to find the right way to respond.

"So where does that leave you," he asked, hoping it wasn't the wrong move.

It took a minute for her to answers.

"I was a knot on their little arrangement, but they accepted me and just - tolerated me existing."

In letting all of this information sink into his head, Michael suddenly remembered dropping off Wendy at her house yesterday and seeing her mother She had been bagging a pile of leaves in the front lawn and didn't even acknowledge her daughter coming home, even when Wendy greeted her. The woman had also given him a look of concern; at first, Michael thought it was for Wendy, but now that he heard this.

"Mark told me about your mother's rant at church once," he said.

Wendy rolled her eyes again. "Not one of her proudest moments. None of it matters, though. One more year, and I'll be eighteen and graduating, and I can go to wherever I please."

"You'll just take off like that?" he asked her in interest.

"I've been saving from my job since I was fourteen, and by next year I'll have enough to start a new life." She proclaimed this with glee in her voice and eyes.

"I've thought about doing that," Michael professed. "Just pick up and leave to wherever the road takes me."

Wendy smiled. "I guess that's something we have in common."

He nodded. Talking to her was easy, that was for sure.

"Come on, I'll take you home." Michael hopped off the car's hood and offered his hand to her. She took it, grinning widely and allowed him to sit her down in the car and close the door for her.

* * *

Parked at the front of her house, Wendy took a deep breath before unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of the car. "Thanks, see you tomorrow then?"

"Definitely."

As she walked into the front lawn, an idea flashed into Michael's head.

"Hey Wendy," When she looked back at him, he quenched at his fear. "Do you want to go to the prom with me?"

"Prom?" Wendy had to be sure she was hearing him right.

"Yeah, would you like to be my date?"

To her surprise, Michael"s face was turning into a scarlet red that she had never seen on a person.

"Yes," she said as calmly as possible after an awkward silence.

"Yes?" Now Michael had to be sure that he heard her right.

"Yes, I'd love to," Even though she didn't realized it at first, Wendy knew she was smiling more than she had ever done so before.

"Alright then, so we can talk about it later," Michael said.

"Yeah, okay."

Wendy started back towards her house again, only a bit slower, unsure of what to do now. There was no point in yelling it out to her parents in delight, but that didn't matter. As she reached her door, she brushed her hands over her head in both nervousness and excitement.

As Michael drove off, he was feeling like he had jumped off the Empire State Building and landed on his feet without attaining a single bruise.

* * *

The house was more quitte than normal, and though it was peaceful, Angela found herself concerned. Sure, she couldn't hold it against her grown up daughters for staying out late, or even for not coming home for a few days at a time; the only reason they were still living with them was to save money. Now, however, Michael was staying out constantly until the very end of his curfew.

Her husband, Dan, was sitting next to her on the living room couch, watching CNN. She would bring this up with him, but when it came to finding out what their kids were doing, he would usually put together a wrong conclusion.

"Do you know what responsibilities a congressman actually has?" he asked her as they watched a report on the candidates for different states.

"Not really, I never did pay attention in government class." She looked at the clock hanging on the wall over the TV. It was nearly seven. Should she even be this concerned, her son was eighteen now and graduating high in just under two months. This would become a normal thing, as it was with his older sisters, but Michael was her only son and now that he was pretty much grown up, Angela was mourning over the fact that in way she would be losing him, soon.

Finally, footsteps sounded from behind the couch. She turned her upper body around to face a seemingly cocky-looking Michael who apparently entered from the back of the house.

"Hey guys, what's for dinner?" he asked casually.

"Is that all I'm good for?" Angela came out sounding more irritated than she meant to. "You are gone all day and you finally come home just so I can feed you."

Her son tried to smile innocently. "You do my laundry pretty well too."

"Don't even joke with that to her," Dan said without turning around to face him, his eyes still on the report on the candidates.

"Right." Michael listened to his father and thought carefully about what to say next. "How was your day?"

Now Angela smiled. "Fine, thank you. Right now, we're watching the announcements on the run for congress. You should start watching these things if you're going to vote."

The three of them watched the TV as a photo came up of another suited man with short-cut hair and the usual grin that politicians showed people. The bar on the bottom read: NEW YORK STATE CANDIDATE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY NATHAN PETRELLI.

"Politicians, not enough good ones to save the world," Michael remarked.

That was not a surprising comment from her son on this topic. _Politics, mostly a pain_, he would always say. Government officials usually became corrupted crooks who did as they pleased to keep their power.

"Well they're the ones who are supposed to," Angela told him. "They're some of the only ones who can."

Behind her, Michael darted his eyes sideway.

Patting on the empty space on the couch next to her, she said, "Sit down and watch with us."

"No thanks." He turned for the direction of the kitchen. "I'll go get some of that spaghetti and go to my room."

Frowning, Angela looked back to Michael as he left the living room. "How did you know I made spaghetti?"

"I smelled it."

In the kitchen, Michael started putting a mountain of spaghetti in his bowl when the room suddenly went dark.

"Oh man," he groaned. "Hey mom, the power's out!"

Moments later, the floor suddenly shook lightly for mere seconds. That was the quickest earthquake ever, as far as Michael could remember. It sounded as if a giant had thrown his fist on the ground in anger.

"Oh my God!" His mother yelled from the living room.

"This has happened before, you know!"

"Call the fire department, Michael!" she shouted. "The Jameson's house is on fire!"

"What -" His mouth fell open when he saw the flames erupting from outside the window over the sink. Oh my God was right.

He let his plate of food drop from his hands and smash all over the floor as he ran out of the kitchen, and out the front door. Running across the lawn and jumping over the wooden fence, Michael spotted a person tumbling out from the smoking house and dropping onto the lawn facedown.

Kneeling down, he slowly rolled the now unconscious form. It was the Jameson's fifteen year-old daughter, with a torn gash on her forehead. She moaned faintly.

Wait, where was the other Jameson girl? The six year-old, Marie. Michael had seen her running into the house as he had driven by just a few minutes before. If she was still in there -

He knew what his instincts were telling him to do, but his fears weren't allowing him to move. The fire was could be seen though the front door, already enveloping the inside, quickly. Was she even still in there? The girl might have escaped another way. Then he heard the horrific scream that belonged to a little girl like a vibration in his ear.

"Marie . . ." whimpered the older Jameson girl, still half-conscious.

The girl screamed again, this time it sounded like a blow horn that's sound wave was going completely into his ear.

There was no room for fear.

Without another thought, Michael put his sweater's hood over his head, leaped onto the front porch, and he went through the front door in a dash.

He went through a line of flames in the living room, with mo regards to it's high temperature. When spinning into a hallway that was barely seeable in the thick smoke, he stopped. The fire had certainly spread fast. Smoke was trying to break into his nostrils heavily, but he kept his mouth and nose covered.

How was he going to find her?

"Just concentrate your hearing," he told himself.

Michael ignored the sound of the fire eating at the house and everything in it, and he looked for the girl's voice. For a minute, there was nothing - but then he heard the soft whimpering coming from down the hallway. Following with his eyes closed and by instinct, he knew to turn into at a corner. The smoke cleared a bit as he moved forward, so he opened his eyes and reached the doorway to the kitchen.

It was good that he had scanned the condition before entering: the ceiling was broken apart like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle; through it, he could see what looked like a huge log with two thick cables hanging off it.

They were power lines and they reached the floor where it was dripping in water. Sparks erupted from the ripped lines and they flickered when making contact with the water. To the right corner of the kitchen there was a small, round table and sure enough, there was little Marie Jameson, in a huddle with her legs covering her face. She knew she couldn't set foot on the floor without being electrocuted.

The table was twenty feet away from the doorway and all Michael had to do was avoid touching the floor and the power lines. It was now or never, from the looks of it, the ceiling wouldn't hold for very long. Taking a few steps back, Michael relaxed his body and then sprinted two big steps before jumping out of the doorway, the nose of his left foot missed the electrical floor by centimeters. His right arm breezed passed one of the power line, then his feet landed on the edge of the table in a firm manner, without shaking at all.

Marie raised her head up in surprise but responded to Michael putting his arms around her by placing hers around his neck. Making sure he had her in a tight hold, he jumped from the table back into the doorway and he started back down the hallway with the girl still safely in his arms.

He kept Marie's face covered in his chest, as the smoke was more unbearable than it had been just a minute before, and what was worse; the fire now blocked the direction where Michael had come from at the corner. He could feel ashes of burning down from above him. Standing in the middle of the hall, he looked to their left, not being able to see a thing for a moment; then a door seemed to stroll into view right in front of him.

It then strolled back as quickly as it came, but Michael now realized he was looking down at another hallway.

He sprinted and grabbed the doorknob without having to see it. When inside, he closed the door behind them and before being able to scan the room for a way out, the wall on the left combusted, Michael ducked with his back on the wall to protect a screaming Marie.

They needed to get out of here, now. Soon this room would be in flames like the rest f the house. On his opposite side, there was a curtained window and just an arm's length to his right, a small wooden chair. Michael freed an arm from Marie to pick up the chair and in one swing, he threw it towards the window. The chair smashed through the glass, taking the curtain with it, and revealing the safety of outside.

His legs suddenly felt hot as the fire had reached the door behind him and was creeping from beneath the it.

Michael ran and leaped through the broken window

They had made it.

He ran to the end of the backyard, placed a reluctant Marie back on her own feet, and began to examine her. The girl's face and cloths were covered in black, and she was breathing fast but seemed virtually all right. A thumping heart sounded out of nowhere, Michael quickly realized he was hearing Marie's rapid but seemingly all right heart beat.

Behind her, he saw the broken down power pole that had stood right behind his and the Jameson's backyards. Judging by the scorching marks at the cut up point, it looked like it had been burned off. They both looked back at the destroyed house, where it's smoke was flowing up into the sky in a mist.

A thought caught Michael. The fire had erupted so quickly and so destructively; though he wasn't much of a chemist or physics expert but he didn't think this sort of thing would cause such a big a disaster. At least it was just the house that was gone, whatever the case.

Marie was now looking at him without blinking. He wondered what she was thinking; could she recognize him through his black-stained face? What mattered was that she was safe, but he didn't want to be asked questions. "Stay here," he told her. "Someone will come for you in a minute."

The girl nodded and Michael stood up, giving the ruined house a last glance before he jumped over the broken down pole and into his family's backyard.

* * *

_Bravery is not something that is taught, but something that has to be found within each person. It's also not about being brave, but seizing the opportunity to be courageous. Feeling and being something are two different things. So when we rise to the chance to be fearless, that is when it becomes worth wild._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	6. Mystery

Chapter 6 "Mystery"

_When there is secret in the midst, some people become intrigued. We want to find out who, what, where, when, why, how. But that is easier said than done. When we know that we're being kept in the dark, it's natural to want to get to the bottom of it._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

Half an hour after the fire had started, the last of its flames were been extinguished by the firefighters. On the sidewalk, the entire Jameson family was huddled together in an embrace, staring at the shard remains of their house.

Michael's parents came and consulted the Jamesons on their terrible misfortune. He stood a short distance away from all of them; he was completely afraid of little Marie recognizing him if he got close. After saving her from the fire, he had rushed back into his house to wash himself, and then change out of his smoke covered cloths in mere minutes.

It was a good thing he just owned jeans, he thought, or his parents might have noticed something. As far as anyone knew, Michael had run into room to find his cell phone when an unknown hooded stranger rescued Marie.

"I would love to hug that person," Mrs. Jameson whimpered. She held Marie in her arms quite fiercely.

"And nobody saw him." Dan asked.

Mr. Jameson shook his head. "Crater said he saw a hooded person run into the house, he didn't his face. Marie said he then disappeared after getting her out into the backyard."

"And she didn't recognize him?" Angela asked.

Again, Mr. Jameson shook his head.

"Marie could see too well for a little while," Mrs. Jameson explained. "And his face was covered like hers."

"Does anybody know how that poll broke down?" Michael asked. He walked closer to the group hesitantly. "That's what I would like to know."

"The police are checking on that right now," his father said. He then turned back to the Jamesons. "Just be thankful you are all safe."

Everyone looked back at the black shell of a former home; they were silent for a short time before Marie murmured in her mother's shoulders.

"Mommy, where's my superhero?" she asked softly.

"He went to help somebody else," Her mother stroked her back, whispering the little girl to sleep.

In his head, Michael was grinning widely. She called him a hero. It felt good. He also thought of what Mrs. Jameson had said. _He went to help somebody else_.

That was what Michael should do, he figured. His gifts helped him make a difference and that was the point of having them.

"Michael, why don't you go clean up that mess you left in the kitchen," his mother instructed to him.

"Right." Without another word, he turned and walked back to his family's house.

"God bless that stranger," Mrs. Jameson whispered, but Michael managed to hear it from his front door and smiled.

* * *

That next day, Michael ran out of his last class the moment the bell rang. Again, he was feeling the same anxiety and relief about graduating and leaving his academic life behind in just short of seven weeks. That was what all the seniors were feeling. While they were happy to be finished with high school, they were scared at the prospect of leaving the safety zone of their young lives.

Added to that now was Michael's fear that somebody might have caught a glimpsed of Marie's hooded rescuer.

At the front of entrance, Wendy was waiting for him with a newspaper in her hands.

"Six year-old Maries Jameson is rescued by a heroic stranger from her burning home," She handed him the paper as they walked down the front entrance steps to parking lot with the crowd of students. "Marie says he was a superhero."

"Well I wasn't in a cape or wearing a mask," he said, as he read more.

The story was on the front page and there was a sketch drawing on the right corner of Michael, his face covered in the shadow of his hood as remembered by Marie.

"I recommend keeping the hood disguise," Wendy told him as they reached his car. "But wear something else to cover your face. Maybe sunglasses, like Green Arrow."

He looked at her in surprise from the driver's side.

"Green Arrow, I didn't know you read comics."

Her eyes darted from side-to-side, as if she was checking for any eavesdroppers.

"I've been doing some research for you," she started explaining. "Figuring out what you super powered people are supposed to do and be like."

"Okay then, how am I supposed to be," he asked, in interest.

"I know that you shouldn't seek rewards or fame for your heroic deeds." Wendy sat down on the passenger's front seat and started tapping on one finger after another. "You put others before yourself and always help them when in they are in need - in other words, be selfless and self-sacrificing. You should always be ready for danger to come at anytime and also, never reveal your secret identity."

"Of course."

Wendy continued. "And you need to be courageous against whatever dangerous obstacles you face."

"All basic stuff," he remarked. "You are sure dedicated to this thing, aren't you?"

Rubbing her head, she looked at him shyly. The girl liked to smile a lot now. He liked that very much.

"Oh and if you want to keep your life private, you need to be able to get in and out of tough spots without getting caught by anyone," she added.

That was good advice; Michael started the car and drove out of the parking lot, thinking about how much he didn't want his abilities to be discovered by the public. Everyone around him would pry into his life without giving him a moment's peace.

"I guess I'll need to train on the disappearing act, too."

"You should catch up on your comic book reading then," Wendy suggested.

"I usually wait for the movies to come out," he stated as he turned on his car.

They drove straight from school to the warehouse, only stopping at a drive through. When they got to the warehouse, they sat down and ate on the hood of the car before Michael would star his workout again.

"Are you excited about graduating?" Wendy asked him after swallowing a large piece of her burger. "I know I will be next year."

"Yeah I am. College isn't my next step, though, it just isn't for me" Michael admitted. "And be saying goodbye to so much come June."

"What do you mean?" she asked, tilting her head to her shoulder.

"My friends are not really close friends," he explained. "It's like when we're out of school, they wouldn't bother to call me up and see how I'm doing or they wouldn't care to get together. The thing is that it's felt like they only hung out with me at school because I was around."

"It feels like you're leaving the party and no one notices or cares," Wendy added. "I feel the same way. I guess that's something else we have in common."

Their eye met and neither looked away. Slowly but surely, they came closer to each other, their lips inches away -

And a loud clanking sound came from outside. Michael spun his head around to the closed doors.

"What was that?" Wendy asked in startle.

Concentrating his hearing, Michael heard the rushing pair of feet as they ran from outside the warehouse. He jumped off the car's hood and raced to the doors, sliding one open and hurrying outside. He heard the running footsteps being mixed into dozens of other walking pedestrians in the street. Passing cars and many voices also joined in; he had to focus.

Michael stayed in the middle of the alleyway, trying to find those running steps again, but suddenly, a screeching overlapped everything else, enveloping his ears. Michael shrieked, falling onto the concrete floor, holding his head.

Wendy ran into the alley and kneeled down beside him. "Come on," she said to him, supporting his upper body as he nearly crumbled on the floor, trying to block the assaulting sound with his hands covering his ears.

He tried to focus on closing them off. The screeching noise was too much to handle - then it stopped. Just like that, it was gone.

"It stopped," he told Wendy. She helped him up to his feet, not letting go of her hold on him. "I don't know what it was but whoever made that noise knew what I could do."

"How could they." Wendy started looking around the area in fear.

"Let's get out of here."

They rushed back into the warehouse and into his car. They were half way towards Wendy's house without saying a word, until Michael took out his cell phone and started dialing a number.

"Who are you calling?"

"Doctor Suresh, he's the only other person who knows about me," he said in unrest. The phone rang and rang until a recording started playing. "Great, answering machine - hello doctor Suresh, its Michael Mules, please call me back as soon as you can. I need help. I think someone is stalking me because of what I can do. You know where to reach me."

When he hung up, he threw the phone onto the backseat in frustration.

"First I forget eighteen hours of my life, and now somebody is stalking me." He rubbed his head because it still ached from that screeching attack. "This is getting crazy."

"You're telling me," Wendy squeaked. "Why would somebody want to hurt you? You haven't done anything wrong."

"But somebody is hurting me." When they stopped at a red light, Michael started tapping his hand on the panel. "So what should I do?"

The seemingly quite moment was ended by a loud honk that caused the both of them to jump from their seats. A long truck then passed on their right and turned at the corner. Michael groaned in displeasure; everything was starting to scare them now.

"Maybe you should spend some time acting normal." Wendy shrugged when he looked at her, unsure of her own suggestion. "If you don't use your abilities at all, then there is no reason for someone to be watching you. Whoever's stalking you could just get bored if there's nothing interesting going."

The idea seemed like a long shot, but Michael nodded in agreement. He glanced at his cell phone which was still in his hand, hoping that Dr. Suresh would call him at that instant with answers, but that was pointless.

"But if it doesn't work, I'm going to need to figure out who it is that's doing all this to me."

Looking back at Wendy, he saw that she was frightened, with her eyes darting side-to-side and her throat shifting in and out. Where before, he had been glad to have her to share his secret with, now he wished that she had not seen him make that miraculous jump. He took her hand in his and smiled as best as he could.

"Let's just not talk about this for a little while," he said. "We'll just go about normal things, like prom."

She looked at her window, now seeming shy again. "It sounds like a plan."

* * *

_CHANDRA SURESH'S APARTMENT, BROOKLYN_

The front door opened and Gabriel Grey - who now wanted to be known only as Sylar, stepped in. While Dr. Suresh was on his shift in his taxi cab, Sylar would wait here and read through some of his research files once more. The old man was reluctant to share his list of evolved people with him, so he was only able to find one when Dr. Suresh gave the information to him.

The answering machine on his desk was bleeping. He pressed on it to play and a young voice spoke.

"Hello Doctor Suresh," he said in a bit of a stutter. "It's Michael Mules, please call me as soon as you can. I need your help. I think someone is stalking me because of what I can do. You know where to reach me."

Sylar played the message again. This was the youngster the doctor had gone to see last month. So somebody else was already targeting him as a prey. If that was so, at least he wouldn't have competition from this one, after hearing doctor Suresh's description of the boy's abilities.

And so this meant that they didn't need to get distracted from the people that Sylar could still get a hold of. He pressed another button on the machine, erasing the message.

* * *

_What is unknown can scare us. Still, we have to face it and solve the mystery if it's important. Otherwise, what dangers we don't fully know about can haunt us._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	7. Normal

Chapter 7 "Normal"

_Most people that have a normal life say they want something more. People who don't live ordinary ones say they wish they did. Maybe the thing is that we want both. We all want to have an amazing story to tell about ourselves, but keep a peaceful life. That's almost an impossible thing to have._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

Going back to a regular life was nearly unbearable. Michael felt like he was in a prison, not being able to jump the way he could or use the high extent of his senses like he knew was possible.

But he had to, or he could end up attacked like in the alley or lose another half day of his memory, or something worse could occur next.

The only thing that was making him feel like any bit of his real self was Wendy. It surprised Michael how quickly she had become an important part of his life. They now spent most of their free time together. She would now even come to his house for dinner, since she usually ate out.

"My parents keep saying you're the type of girl they'd like for me," he told her one day at school during lunch. "And my sisters keep saying it's about time that I brought one home."

She looked down at her tray of food to hide her wide grin; smiling had now become an ordinary thing for her. "I wonder how they'd feel if I had come in my old dark-dreary form," she remarked.

"I wasn't even going to bring that up," Michael admitted. "What happened with that look?"

After darting her eyes around, Wendy answered, "I was never really a makeup girl and I missed the sun. I'm really just a plain and simple type of person."

"I like plain and simple."

They would have had another minute of awkward silence and stares, only a milk then carton flew to their table, and onto Wendy's tray. Small drops of milk also spilled onto her food.

"Nice one," someone said jeeringly in a low tone, but Michael heard it quite clearly. He looked over to one of the tables at the far side of the lunch area where a group of guys had been looking at them until Michael looked their way.

"This is exactly why I quit eating lunch here sophomore year," Wendy remarked. She began lowering her body down behind the table, her cheerful mood seeming a bit diminished.

In his ears, Michael could hear a bit of chuckling coming from that same group of students that he had eyed. Without a thought, he grabbed the thrown milk carton and started walking down the series of tables towards them.

In the table next to them, Mark was with his usual group of friends and saw Michael as he walked passed his table. When he reached his destination, the one sitting on the top of the table stared at him with the same evasive look as the smoking student, Carl. That had gone well, if Michael thought to remember.

"What's up?" he asked Michael casually.

He held the milk carton forward. "You missed the trash can," he said in the same casual tone.

The guy looked at the milk carton, and then to him, frowning. "Go ahead and throw it, then."

Don't start forcefully, he said in his head.

"It's yours, so you should do it."

"You're the one who cares." This time the guy sounded irritated.

Behind him, Wendy walked up rather hesitantly. Michael nodded over his shoulder to her. "So the fact that your trash fell on her food doesn't concern you?"

The guy shrugged. "It wasn't my fault she was eating there. Why don't the two of you just get over it, already?"

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Michael took the time to come up with the right response, chirping his teeth.

"I've seen you around. You're a junior right?" He nodded. "Well within a year, you'll be going into the real world and that immature behavior isn't going to get you very far."

Now this guy came off the table, approached Michael within inches. His snaring eyes showing that he was expecting a fight, his slow and fast heart thumping, indicating the same.

"Thanks for the lecture, but your knight-in-shinning-armor thing isn't entertaining anymore," he scowled. "It's just annoying."

In his mind, Michael could see the various things he could do to this guy, but he also thought about the person or people watching him, possibly waiting for him to do something with his abilities. Then he thought of prom being a day away and his graduation in a month. He didn't want to endanger any of that.

His free hand stayed into a fist for only seconds. Instead he reached out and grabbed the guy's hand and put the milk carton on it.

"This is my last month in school," he said to the surprised junior. "Just help me make it a good last month by pretending to be a respectful classmate."

They met stare-to-stare, neither one willing to fall back. Several of the closer tables of students were watching them with immense interest. Michael could hear their hearts beating in joint anticipation.

The guy's heart then started calming down. He finally broke contact with Michael's eyes and walked over to the trash can and tossed the milk carton into it. He looked back to him and raised his arms as if saying, there, you happy?

Nodding in thanks, Michael turned and started back to his table with Wendy right behind him.

A girl at one of the nearby tables clapped for a moment to Michael. Mark called out to him as he passed his table. "That was inspiring, Michael," he said.

Only glancing back at him for a quick moment, he replied, "Yeah and also thanks for coming to have my back, like Wendy and not just watch like everybody else."

He continued through the tables, leaving Mark a bit taken aback by his comment.

* * *

After school had ended, Michael had not felt like going home, so he and Wendy stayed outside of the school, and just sat and talked on the steps to the front entrance.

"So what was with that thing you said to Mark?" she finally got the nerve to asked. "You looked as angry at him as you were at the one who threw the milk carton."

"Look, he was just never a good friend," Michael said bluntly. "I've told you that."

They were silent for minute or two, Wendy being unsure of what to say after Michael basically disowned Mark as a friend. He had come to not even talk to him, though if what Michael said was true, Wendy wondered if Mark even noticed it.

"You don't even care about trying to tell him this?" She hoped that this wasn't pushing the subject for him.

"We're guys, we don't open up emotionally to each other unless we're dying or something," Michael explained.

Boys, why did they have to be so sheltered? Wendy supposed that was one of the great mysteries.

"So then I guess it's just you and me on this."

"Well I haven't heard back from Doctor Suresh." Michael sounded clearly worried about the Indian geneticist. Other than Wendy, he was the only other person Michael could depend on with this.

"What if the same people who made me forget that night, and who also attacked me at the warehouse did something to him too?"

That was a theory they couldn't ignore. Michael was pretty much convinced of it out. Wendy, however, had a new theory she had to put out there.

"What if Doctor Suresh is the one behind this?" she finally said. "He's the only other person that supposedly knows about you. He could be fooling you."

Michael shook his head at this. "No, you didn't meet him. The guy just wants to help me, and he wouldn't do that. I showed him what I could do; he didn't have to pull these sorts of stunts."

"Okay, if you say so."

"I know so," he reassured her.

Still, Wendy knew that whoever was behind this was still lurking out there. With this unknown force stalking and attacking Michael, Wendy felt that he needed someone to have his back now more than ever

This would be exactly what she would do.

"Let just not talk about right now, okay," he suggested rather sorely.

"Right. We just keep everything ordinary - normal." A few seconds later, Wendy added, "Whatever that is for us."

Michael's lip curled as she made that last comment.

When she looked down the parking lot and across the street, Wendy saw a lone car parked with the driver -who she couldn't make out - just sitting inside. For whatever reason, she gazed at it for a minute until the driver started the car up and drove down the street. She shrugged the odd moment off without a thought.

Neither she nor Michael realized that it was the same car that had been parked on that same spot all day.

* * *

A cell phone vibrated on a desk minutes after Wendy had eyed that car. A man walked into the room, went to the desk and picked up the phone.

"Yes," he answered.

"It's me, Thompson." It was a woman's voice coming from the other end, sounding tiring. "So the kid talked some punk down for his girl; he had almost been close to going into combat mode."

"Well, he's a big man," Thompson mocked as he sat down on his chair.""Look why am I watching this kid?" the woman snorted. "He isn't doing anything interesting unless I cause trouble nearby, like with that fire. Why did I have to do that again?"

"We needed to see if the kid would jump into danger," he explained to her. "Test his skills a bit."

"Okay but how much longer do I have to keep watching him?"

"Until we have seen what he is entirely capable of," Thompson told her sharply, making it clear to her that there was no arguing with her assignment. ⌠He can be an asset to us one day. Just keep watching him and you'll receive further instructions in due time."

"Fine." Her frustration was very clear over the phone, but she knew to obey.

Thompson hung up the phone and opened one of his drawers. After flipping through numerous cataloged files inside, he took out the one he was looking for. He opened it and relaxed against his cushioned -chair. The file had a school picture of Michael Mules and all the information on him: family, permanent records, and of course, all that was known about his abilities.

The youngster, Michael, would become a valuable to them, but he would have to be tested more, and without him noticing anything.

* * *

_Maybe normal is a perspective; something that is based on each person's own point of view. Whether normal for someone would be a life of mysteries to be solved or constant danger ahead. Whatever it is for each of us, what probably matters is if it's the normal we want._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	8. Attachment

Chapter 8 "Attachment"

_It is one of the most important things to all of us if not the most. We depend on our relationships with others to keep going in our lives. Whether it's with family or friends or a lover. It's the core of us, so it can also be our downfall._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

It was early morning but the weather was friendly enough for people to be out. It wasn't too cold or hot and that's how Michael liked it. He had always been a morning bird, up until recently; his dreams now kept him up.

He waited inside his car for Wendy to come out of her house. She had called asked and him to come over right away and he obliged. The front door opened slightly, and she crept out through the front door, afraid of stepping outside, darting her head to either side before exiting out of the door completely and walking into the car's front passenger seat.

"Hey, so what did you need me to come over for?"

His friend hesitated for a moment before starting to talk. "I don't know about the dance. I don't think I should go."

"What? Come on, you already have your dress and it's going to be fun," he argued.

"But I won't ft there." Her eyes gazed out through her window and beyond it's view. "People will either not notice me or they'll think I'm some intruder."

"You're talking about things that aren't true." He shook his head and reached to gently turn her gaze to him. "We're going to have a fun time. I know it."

"But the other people-"

"So what," he said sharply. "They're just other people that are there. This is about you and me having a fun and memorable night, in spite of anything else."

Wendy didn't reply. She just looked down the street with a light frown. She was scared of this. The private outings him and several dinners with his family she could handle, but a dance with hundreds of other people. She didn't know what that would be like.

"Wendy, I know you want to go tonight," he added when she didn't speak. "When I first asked you to go, I saw your face light up."

She looked at him again, the frown now gone. "But before we met - or even when we first met, you didn't have a girl like me in mind to take to prom."

"The things we don't see coming turn out to be the good things in life," he said in a poetic matter.

Now she finally smiled. "I'm just not sure what this will mean."

A second of flickering fear appeared on Michael's face before he leaned towards her and brushed his lips against hers. Wendy found herself losing all awareness except for this and closed her eyes to add to her sense of feeling in what was happening.

He back away moments after having done it but for Wendy the kiss had been eternity.

"Have you thought this just being an allusion?" Michael brushed his hand on her lower cheek. "That's not my power."

"You're something, you know," she said in a low tone. "Not just with your powers, that just adds more character."

"Do you want to have breakfast?"

"Yeah."

* * *

Later that day, Michael was back at his house, staring at himself in the mirror of the bathroom. This time, he wasn't judging his entire being, just his appearance. For the prom, he went with a completely black-colored tuxedo

It was time for him to go pick up Wendy, but his insecurity was getting the better of him at the moment. He checked his mint-scent breath again, brushed a hand on his combed-back hair, tucked at his coat and stood straight while he stared at his reflection.

He was ready.

There was no time for anymore hesitating.

Exiting the bathroom, he found his father standing outside in the hall, apparently having waited for him for a good amount of time.

"You were in there for a good half-hour," Daniel pointed out.

Michael pulled down on his coat, again. "I know. I just wanted to make sure everything's right."

"You're a knock out, son. Just like every man in this family"

Dan put his hands on Michael's shoulders with a firm grip. "Now, just remember to treat this girl like a princess, and enjoy yourselves. This is meant to be a night to remember."

His son just nodded repeatedly with nerves.

Daniel's face became more serious. "Anything that happens tonight . . . Just be safe and secure. Don't be stupid about anything and think nothing bad will come from it.

Michael's face reddened a bit.

"Gotcha."

"And don't forget you can tell me anything that's on your mind," he said stuttering. "I went though all the same things that you're going through."

His comment made Michael frown a bit. "No, there are a few differences."

His then father nodded over to his and Angela's bedroom. "Come on, your mom wants to take pictures. Just smile and let her do it."

His son's frown widened in reluctance as his father led him by arm towards the bedroom's door.

* * *

When Michael arrived at Wendy's house, he checked himself in the rearview mirror once again before stepping out of his car. A red-flowered corsage in hand.

Not being able to help himself, he opened his senses, targeting the direction of the house; he caught the brief scent of strawberry perfume before his listening drew out his sense of smell.

"When are you getting back so you can do the laundry?\" snarled a rough male voice. "You're mom is at her bible study tonight."

"I told you, I'll do it first thing in the morning," Wendy answered in great agitation. "And dinner's in the microwave."

Listening in closer, Michael's heard Wendy's rapid heart beat, pounding in anticipation and fear. She was nervous, just like he was. Taking a deep breath, he walked down the front lawn and onto the front porch and knocked on the door.

Mere seconds later, it opened and Michael nearly lost that deep breath: Wendy was in a silk-blue dress with thin straps going over her shoulders. Her dark hair was combed back and slightly-wavy, and two small braids were on the top sides of her head.  
She looked radiant.

"You're beautiful." That was all that needed to be said for her to smile.

"Shall we go?" she suggested, gesturing to his car.

His arms came around hers gracefully.

"As you wish,": he said.

Several houses away a car was parked with the driver inside, watching Michael escort Wendy to his car and placing the corsage on her wrist - with a bit of difficulty - and then seat her in the passenger's seat.

* * *

When Michael and Wendy arrived at the school gym, it was already crowded with students - mainly seniors - many of which were on the dance floor. It took them a few minutes to find an unclaimed table at a far corner and they seated themselves.

For a short while, they just decided to talk, then a man in his mid-forties in a light tux with a red bowtie approached their table.

"Mr. Shames, that tie is you," Michael remarked when he saw him.

"Thank you, Michael. So why haven't you two hit the dance floor?" he asked as he sat down next to Michael.

"We just wanted to talk a little bit," Wendy said, leaning against her date. "I was just telling Michael how liberating it must feel that graduation is so close."

"Oh it is." Mr. Shames brushed his graying hair back while examining the gym and all the students. "Once you're finished here, it will be like starting a new chapter in your life."

The teacher waved around at the entire place. "You can leave all this behind and not look back."

"There are some things I won't be leaving behind," Michael said, taking Wendy's hand in his.

"That I understand," Smiling to them both, Mr. Shames patted Michael on the shoulder and stood up. "Just remember to go into the real world with your eyes opened and you'll see a lot of new things."

Once Mr. Shames walked two tables away, Michael yelled back, "I already am!" Hours passed, hours of dancing, and talking with countless classmates; it seemed to Michael as if it was all moving so fast and yet so slow as well. He knew that what he would remember the most would be Wendy's radiant smile through out the entire night.

The final song came and everyone paired up for the slow dance. When the pair walked onto the dance floor, Wendy pressed herself against him, her head rested on his shoulder.

"Michael," she whispered. "You know this night has been the most amazing one that I've ever had."

"Me too," He was grinning widely and didn't care if he appeared weird, as his sisters would say he did. "You do know you're actually the first girl to say yes to me for - anything."

She chuckled for a moment, then stopped herself. "That is sweet and sad at the same time."

They continued dancing and memories came to Michael of all the times a girl laughed in his face or made it clear in both sensible and hurtful manners that they weren't interested in him.

"Well it's true. You're the first girl to spare me a glance, and it doesn't matter if it was because of my abilities."

Wendy stepped back a bit from their embrace as they continued moving elegantly within the crowd of dancing couples.

"You may not remember this, but we had study hall together," she explained. "Last year, during our second semester."

Recollection of those certain times came to him, and he did in fact recall Wendy.

"You had your hood on most of the time," he verified.

"Yeah, that was me." she frowned a bit, thinking of how she used to be. ⌠Under that hood I could see you sitting on the other side of the library. It was not so much as a crush as it was an interest."

"Interest?"

As if reading his mind that he needed a bit more of an explanation, she continued.

"You seemed lost, or something. I just wondered who you were and what you were dealing with." She shrugged. "Now I know, I guess."

They stayed silent for a moment, before Wendy spoke, again.

"Even though I did not see this coming, I'm glad it did," she proclaimed.

More memories came to Michael, more recent ones this time, of all the periods with the two of them floating to the surface of his mind. She was there for him, asked of nothing in return. She cared for him with such willingness and didn't fear away when unknown dangers came out of the shadows.

Wendy was now an important part in Michael's life. This realization made all the lurking feelings come into light and Michael's throat became clogged with something that had only come out for his family and his dog.

"Wendy, I . . . I . . ."

"I love you."

She beat him to the punch. So there was nothing left that needed to be said.

Leaning down to her, they kissed again; the unawareness of everything around once again came with it.

* * *

_Our attachments can give us our most vulnerable spots, but they can also give us our greatest strength. Like anything else, it has to be waved careful. And they must never be taken for granted._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	9. Reality

Chapter 9 "Reality"

_It's fact, unquestionable and undeniable. When are certain, we may not be happy with the bits of it that comes at us out of nowhere, whether it's a bad or good thing, it's important that we come to terms with it and then move on._

* * *

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

After the prom ended, the eventful night was still in its beginning stage

On the beach, a condo was enveloped in music and more than a hundred people in their late teens were letting lose in all the ways a school dance wouldn't allow. The night was dark, but there were a few who actually went for a swim, not afraid of the water in a darkness only lit by stars.

A short distance away from the beach house, Michael was walking steadily with a bear foot Wendy on his back. Her arms were circled around his chest - which ached in the sting of her shoes's heels that she was holding. Wendy's head rested on his shoulder and breathed warmly against his neck.

"You're not trying to be heavy on purpose, are you?" he asked.

"You can handle it," she remarked. "You might develop super strength."

"Looks like we're one of the last ones to make it," he said as they neared the beach house.

"I don't really care that we even made it anymore," Wendy said grinning.

Michael managed to make to the side door of the house with Wendy strapped onto him. When she was set down onto the sand, it took a minute to straighten himself and mend his cracking bones.

"I don't plan on getting drunk on anything tonight," he sated as he reached for the doorknob. "Let's just dance and hang out."

"Don't worry, I'm a simple girl, remember."

As she went through the opened door, Wendy gave him a playful-mischievous grin.

The party was in fact filled with the scent of smoke and beer as Michael had predicted, and the music was in competition with the loud conversations between people. They traveled from the living room to the adjacent kitchen where the hostess, Carla Towle was talking with a group of giggling girl on an island filled with trays of various food, some of which neither Michael or Wendy knew of.

When Carla saw them, she began hopping and clapping her hands in delight and ran over them, hugging Wendy and shaking hands with Michael as if they were long time friends.

"I'm glad you both could make it," she said a flushed. "I love your dress - and Michael, looking sharp. Sorry we didn't chat at the prom. At least we're chatting now."

"Great party," Michael said plainly, but as loud as possible so to be heard over the music. "Are you sure nobody's going to call in a complaint on us."

"Oh no, this house is a mile away from the nearest neighbors, we can rock as loud as we can." Carla made a thrusting motion with her hips and nearly knocked a passing girl to the side.

"This should be a wild night," Wendy remarked.

"Well, enjoy yourselves; I'd better get back to my hosting duties." Carla lightly pecked Wendy on the cheeks before adding, "By the way Michael, I didn't tell you at prom, but total black works for you." She gave him a gazing stare before turning back to the island and the group of still giggling girls.

"Now I know I don't want to have any drinks, tonight," Wendy said bluntly.

Michael had his eyebrows raised, still starting at Carla. "I don't think she's drunk. I think that's just her."

As the party went on, Michael and Wendy stayed clear of the obvious dangers that lurked from students who smelled like they were just coming out of a car's fuel exhaust. They wandered into a long hallway where several people were talking and there thankfully, wasn't any otter.

In his mind, Michael sighed when he saw Mark with his date, standing a few feet away against a wall.

"Hey Mark," he said stonily.

"Michael," he replied in the exact same tone.

None of them spoke for a long minute that was one too many. Both young men stood firm with their arms crossed, rocking a bit back and forth.

Finally, mark's date spoke out. "Say, it's Wendy, right? Can you help me with something in the bathroom?"

The girl's darting eyes signaled Wendy of their temporarily needed disappearance. Wendy nodded and kissed Michael on the cheek before following Mark's date down the hallway.

Now the two old friends stood with their same postures, neither one being willing to be the one to speak first.

"So what was up with what you told me yesterday?" Mark eventually decided to blurt out. He had clearly been holding that in.

"Just finally getting the truth out in the open." He shrugged to Mark and put his hands in his pocket.

"What do you mean, 'Getting the truth out'?" he snarled. "You got into a face off over a milk carton."

This time Michael snarled. "What about that time I told off those guys for smoking in the middle of class right under the teacher's nose?"

Mark shook his had, chuckling a bit. "That was stupid, too. You just couldn't stay out of it."

"Well still, do you remember what you told me after those guys threatened to beat me up?" The very memory of that made Michael shake his own head in return. "They didn't do anything, but when they threatened to, you then said 'Nice going there. Good luck'."

When Mark didn't have a response to this, Michael was ready to walk away when all of a sudden, a familiar screech enveloped the inside of his head. He started to squint in pain, and Mark became confused by his sudden state.

"What's wrong with you?"" he asked angrily.

The screeching sound then stopped within a few seconds after beginning. Standing up straight again, he focused his hearing passed all the loud partiers and the full volume music to the outside of the condo, then he concentrated it even farther out on the surrounding area.

What he heard was unexpected, the sound of loud crashing of something large and a girl screaming slammed into his ear. There was trouble, so he had to move.

"Let's just leave this friendship with high school," he told a confused Mark. He rushed out of the hallway, without another word to him. He wouldn't let this stalker get away, again. Michael dodged the numerous people and Carla calling out to him in the living room, dashing out the door.

On the outside, he scanned for some indication of an accident and quickly spotted a cloud of barely visible smoke coming up from a street that lay on a cliff side overlooking the beach.

"Hey!" he yelled to the first person that he spotted and pointed to the smoke. "There's been an accident! Call nine-one-one!"

Michael started running, there was no thought in his mind, except to get to that car and to the whimpering girl that was there.

As he neared the cliff's rocky wall - which he almost didn't see in the dark - his legs pushed off the sand. To Michael's displeasure, the jump didn't take him all the way up the cliff wall. Reaching out with his arms, he grabbed hold of the stone-cold rock.

The rest of his body slammed against the rock; pushing aside the pain, Michael found his footing on a small piece of rock and after several quick breaths he took another jump and made it to the rest of the way.

He landed only a short distance away from the tipped over car and two figures that were inside, seemingly motionless; the car was not just tipped over, but also scorched on it's nose, or rather terribly burned to be more precise.

Michael ran despite his still rumbling body to the passenger's side and checked through the window.

The girl whose scream he had heard was now unconscious like the male driver. Michael swung the door open, unbuckled her seatbelt and eased her into his arms. He ran a hundred feet away and carefully placed her on the side of the road. Michael then started back to the car with more haste, as the car began to catch fire.

The smoke was now much heavier inside when he reached to open the driver's side door, so he took a deep breath before sliding in and reached up to unbuckled the driver's seatbelt., but to no avail He started to pull on the strap with all his might and after some effort, the strap ripped out, releasing the driver.

Getting a good hold of him, Michael crawled back out of the passenger's side door, pulling him along until they were both out of the car that was now head-covered in flames. Michael lifted the driver up onto his arms with more difficulty than the girl and began running as fast as he could.

As he reached the still unconscious girl, the car exploded; Michael felt the force behind him and nearly tripped on himself. When he had his footing again, he carefully laid the boy next to the girl.

Up ahead a car was driving up the road and Michael knew that was his cue to take off. He jumped over the streets safety railing, hopping down the cliff wall twice before landing down on the sand in a loud thump.

_I'm going to feel that one tomorrow._

* * *

Almost all the people from Carla's party had raced over to the sight of the accident once word got out about it. Michael and Wendy stayed in the crowd on the side of the road as the couple from the accident were carried into separate ambulance trucks that had arrived soon after the accident had been called in.

The police had also arrived and were questioning several of them on what they might have seen regarding the accident.

"I just saw the smoke and yelled for somebody to call nine-one-one," Michal told one of the police officers in as much of a simple manner as he could make himself sound. "Do "ou guys know what caused the accident?"

"As far as we could tell, it wasn't drunk driving," the police officer said. "We'll be in touch with you if we have any further questions."

After saying goodbye, the pair started back to the beach along with the other partiers who were being shooed away by the police.

"I saw the front of the car," Michael explained to Wendy in a whisper. "It was already burned and scorched up before the fire even started."

"And it's not a coincidence that It happens at the same time that you're attacked by that screeching noise, too," she added.

"Those burning marks remind me of the pole from my neighbor's fire." Michael looked around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear him. "I think both those things were sabotage."

"But why would somebody want to do all this on a count of you?" she pondered.

"They're nuts obviously and they haven't left me alone like we had hoped." Paranoia was crawling from all directions onto Michael's nerves, and he looked to the people walking around them as they reached the beach and everyone made their way back towards the condo. He thought maybe the culprit, or culprits would pop out of nowhere, and he would recognize them instantly.

"So that means I'm still in trouble."

* * *

_When some things are undeniably true, we don't want it to be so. We want to go into our fantasies, or deny these facts that are called the harshness of reality; that things turn bad and difficult, but we can't forget the good things that are real as well._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	10. Recovery

Chapter 10 "Recovery"

_When we're pained, either emotionally, physically, or mentally, the next step to heal. But people say there are some wounds that there's no healing from._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

From the rooftop of the warehouse, Wendy watched hopelessly as Michael continued walking in circles, yelling in all directions with strong force in his voice. He was behaving historically, but she couldn't really blame him.

"Come on! I know you're listening to me! Where are you!" he shouted again with all the power of his nostrils. "I'm right here, waiting for you!"

"Michael, you've been at this for too long now," she argued to him. ⌠Nobody is going to come."

"That's because they're chicken! If they don't have the lurking in the shadows scenario they have nothing!" Michael continued spinning around to different directions.

He was paranoid now. He told Wendy that he knew they were watching him every minute of everyday; that he could feel it in his bone. He was beginning to scare her.

"Come on, already!" he yelled out. "Let's get this show on the road!"

It was pointless, yelling out like this. Wendy knew it and she figured that he did as well, but he needed to get all these bent up emotions out of his system. The fact that he was being followed and manipulated into helping people with his abilities made him scared, delusional, and distrusting.

"Are you afraid I'll beat you in a straight-forward fight?" he rambled.

No answer came.

If they were being watched right now, the stalker was not going to respond to this. Wendy wondered if this person - or these people were getting a kick out of making her pour Michael act like this.

The distraught young man buried his head in his arms for a moment before letting out a loud cry of distress, shooting it out of himself and into the sky. She walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder cautiously. He stuttered a bit as she moved her arm around his neck and placed her other hand on his chest.

"I know you're scared, but I'm with you on this," she said to him as softly as she could be. "I promise we'll figure this out."

He didn't look at her or say anything.

"I'm scared, too," she added.

Michael looked up to her and allowed Wendy to pull him into an embrace. She kissed him on the cheek and tightened her hold on him.

"What am I supposed to do? I can't pretend like nothing's wrong," he said. "What if this keeps happening, but next time I'm not able to save the person. I need to find out who is doing all this."

"What do you want to do?" Wendy was a bit afraid of what answer he might give, as it would most-likely lead to danger.

"Doctor Suresh still hasn't returned any of my messages. Something might have happened to him." Michael stepped out of her embrace and began to pace. "That night I blacked out, there might answers in that missing time. I need to remember."

"Okay. How do we go about doing that, then?"

Michael spun around back to her and raised his arms in ignorance. "I have no clue."

* * *

Angela was replacing the table cover in the kitchen when Michael walked in a sweat, and went to the refrigerator without a word to her; Angela wondered if he had even noticed his mother standing here.

"Don't forget to say hello," she blurted.

Her son took his head out from the refrigerator with a cocky expression mixed with annoyance.

"Sorry, I didn't really see you," he insisted. He then went back to examining the inside of the refrigerator.

"Well that seems to be turning into a habit for you," Angela said bluntly. "It's not a good habit."

Michael didn't respond to that comment.

He wasn't really responding to much of anything from her or anybody else in the family lately. He always had his feuds with his father and older sisters, but never with her. They had always shared such a close bond.

Now things weren't the same. She would have liked to blame this on the sudden existence of a certain girl, but she couldn't hold it against her son for starting a romantic relationship, something that he was supposed to do.

"Where were you all afternoon?"

"Out with Wendy," he told her as he finally closed the refrigerator and sat down on the table with a can of soda. Angela grunted under her breath.

"What were you two doing?" she dared to ask, knowing he would probably not give her a straight-forward answer.

"We were just hanging out." Michael stared out of the kitchen window to the great view they had of Los Angeles, thanks to their residency on a hilltop. Dodger's Stadium could even be seen from their spot. Angela remembered how she would find her son staring out this window for an endless amount of time as a youngster, but nowadays it seemed rare if he gave her a quick glance.

"By hanging out, what do you mean?" she knew she was pushing it, but didn't care.

"It means what it means."

"Hanging out doesn't really specify to anything."

Now her son's face became completely irritated. "Why are you being so poky? You know I went out and you can reach me on phone if you there's an emergency."

"I still would like to know where you're going and what you're doing," she argued rather agitated. "And I'm glad you made it home early, because your little sister is coming home a day early from her school trip, so the family is going out to eat after we pick her up."

"Okay." Michael paused for a moment before continuing to talk. "But mom, I'm not eight years old anymore. You don't have to monitor me every second of everyday, You know I feel like I don't have any control over my life if people do that. What, you don't trust me?"

"I didn't say that," Angela pointed out. This wasn't going well. She changed her frustrated tone to become friendlier. "It is not like you're a kid anymore, but don't try and become completely independent right away."

"I'm responsible. I can hold a job. I come home before curfew, I do my chores. I'm graduating high school in less than a month, but you still insist on the same rules from when I was thirteen," Michael argued. "You don't get how frustrating things have been for me lately. How much pressure there's been to be prepared for everything that's supposed to change in my life."

From this Michael stood from his seat and left the kitchen.

Angela sighed. That had gone well. Maybe once his little sister was home, she would be able to reach him.

* * *

Even though his little sister was returning home, Michael wasn't really that drawn into it; the fact that he was being stalked was occupying all this thoughts. Wendy had come along with him and his family to the bus station, per his mother's request.

"What's your little sister like?" she asked him.

"She's alright for the most part." They stood a short distance away from the rest of his family so they could talk privately. "So I was checking on the internet, and I found something about Hypnos therapy. That might help me gain my memory back."

"Michael, I don't really want to talk about any of this right now," she admitted. "And you shouldn't either. I mean look: your family is here, spending time together. Please just put this out of your mind for tonight, at least."

He slowly gazed at her in a frown. She couldn't blame him for being distracted, but if he didn't come out of this bad state of mind, he could become worse than he already was.

"There she is," Michael's mother announced from the station's gate. Wendy took Michael's arm, dragging him towards his family at the gate. "Tracy, honey, welcome home."

Angela embraced a young girl of eleven years of age. Wendy thought the girl to look very much like her brother; she had brownish-blond hair with a pale complexion that bonded well with her features. When she met Tracy's face, she also saw the same hazel-green eyes as Michael.

After her parents and sisters were took their turns hugging her, Tracy then walked up to her brother and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Hey big brother. Anything new going on with you?" she asked in a sort of dreamy tone.

Finally, Michael's grim face became softer and he smiled slightly. "Well yeah. Tracy, this is Wendy. My girlfriend."

Tracy looked at Wendy with an expression of curiosity - no, not curiosity, more like judgment. The girl was obviously protective of her brother and was trying to contemplate on whether or not Wendy was somebody she could trust with her Michael.

"Hi Wendy." she offered her hand to the older girl. "Nice to meet you."

Wendy took it and felt the firm handgrip youngest of the Mules family had.

"So are we going to eat now?" Tracy asked anxiously.

Michael's grin became wider. "Yeah, we're going now. Come on."

He took Wendy's arm and Tracy went to stand on his other side as the family left the station.

* * *

_We all want to be Ok. That can be a hard thing, though, when you're life is part of a big picture. Maybe what we need to think about rather than recovering from wounds is learning how to live with them._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	11. Family

Chapter 11 "Family"

_They're what we're born into in one sense or another. We have are own individual kinds, some good, some bad, some in-between, but at least we have them - or at least, we can make them out of something else besides blood-ties._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

After having dinner, the Mules family returned to the house, most of them with the desire to fall onto their beds. Michael, however, was losing his time in that blissful state more and more since that first attack in the alley. When they arrived at the house, he and Wendy walked to his car in haste, but Tracy followed suit.

"Hey Michael, can I come?" she asked hopefully.

"No Tracy. I'm just taking Wendy home, so I'll be back in a bit," he said stonily.

His little sister either didn't notice or disregarded that somewhat harsh manner in which he was speaking to her. She continued towards his car as he was opening the door for Wendy.

"Come on. You'll have company on the way back," she said, sounding both desperate and forceful.

Michael rolled his eyes before turning to face Tracy. "Shouldn't you be going to bed now, anyways?"

He looked to his parents desperately for help in getting Tracy to the house; Tracy caught this and looked to Angela and Daniel in an equal expression of a need for them to side with her.

"Michael, you sister obviously wants to spend more time with you," their mother said. "Just take her. I know she will behave. Right?"

The girl nodded and gave them all a face as if to say should that even be an issue?

The girl was persistent. Wendy had to say that.

"I'll be quiet and I'll let you guys talk the whole drive there," she offered.

Michael looked over to Wendy, who nodded with a smile. In the dinner that she had just had with the Mules family, she had come to like the youngest of them very much, as the girl had done most of the talking about her long trip.

"Okay, but don't start ranting, or else I'll tie your mouth with duck tape," Michael said, warningly pointing a finger at his younger sibling.

Making a small, happy jump, Tracy ran into the backseat of the car with a giggle. Michael sighed and entered his car.

_Why does she have to be so insistent on anything that has to do with me?_

"So Wendy, how did you and my brother get together?"

Amazing! He hadn't even started the car yet, and already she was starting to do her investigation on the latest coupling in their family. She always did this. Now Michael saw what always annoyed his older sisters about Tracy. He started the car and began driving without saying a word or even looking at either girl.

"Well, we met a month ago, and . . . I was just drawn by his uniqueness," Wendy explained.

"Uniqueness?" Tracy blink several times, then curled the tip of her lips. "I've always told him that he's unique, but he never believed me."

"He didn't?"

"No. I guess it sounds better coming out from a person who makes out with him," Tracy then added in a grin.

"Tracy!" Why did she insist on tagging along? Did she just want to torment him? "We-what is or isn't happening between us is none of your business."

"When he says that, it means it is happening." The eleven-year-old stood up from the backseat and placed her arms on the back of the front seats. "Irene says you two spend a lot of time out. What do you guys do, couples stuff?"

"Tracy, sit down and put your seatbelt on!" Michael said loudly in surprise. If she ended up getting injured, he would get a beaten from his mother that not even his abilities could save him from.

"I'm liking your sister more and more," Wendy said cheerfully.

For a brief second, Michael actually thought he might want to be attacked by his stalker again. Deep down, he knew that he shouldn't be upset with Tracy; before now he had always been on the same side as her when it came to things like this in their family. They had always been a team as a matter-of-fact, always being equally annoying to their older siblings.

But things were different now.

For one thing, he had Wendy and that put him on the other side of these harassments, and of course there was everything that had occurred in the time Tracy had been away: his powers, Dr. Suresh, these attacks.

He was in a completely different place now, which would change his bond with his little sister. He didn't feel like they could be the same as before. There was now this secret that he wouldn't dare risk revealing to anybody who already didn't know, and that would strain their once strong relationship.

They drove to the front of Wendy's house and they leaned towards each other before remembering that they weren't alone in the car and looked over to bright-eyed Tracy sitting down in contempt.

"Go on. You're not bothering me," she insisted.

"It was great meeting you, Tracy," Wendy told her. She shook hands with the younger girl before leaning over to Michael again, kissing him and then stepping out of the car.

"I'll see you at school, Michael," she said and closed the door.

Michael watched her walk to the house and disappear through the front door. With everything that was happening, he was scared for her safety; if these people decided to attack the ones that were closest to him, he didn't know what he would do if he couldn't protect them.

Now that fear was amplified with Tracy back home.

His little sister jumped from the backseat to the front, like he had always done, too. They were so much alike. _What if something happens to you?_

"She's nice. I like her." Tracy smiled brightly at him. He forced a smile back. "So are we going?"

"Yeah." He reached for the keys in the ignition, then pulled his hand back. "I'm glad you're home. I missed you."

"I missed you, too."

"Now put your seatbelt on," Michael added.

He stroked his little sister's shoulder before starting his car and driving down the street.

A few minutes went by after leaving Wendy's house without a word being spoken. This wasn't how they used to be. Before they could talk about anything.

Once again, Michael remembered that things were different.

"How about we go get some ice cream, Tracy?" he suggested, forcing a smile, again.

Tracy smiled back. "Definitely. It sucked that that restaurant didn't have any desserts. What were mom and dad thinking?"

"That it was fancy." Now Michael grinned without having to make himself do so. "They forgot what type of kids they have."

The two siblings shared a laugh that extinguished the tension there had been in the car before.

And then the moment was ruined by the familiar sound of a screech that meant trouble for Michael and the people around him. Tracy went wide-eyed when her brother lost his hold on the steering wheel and the car started to jerk from side to side.

"Michael, what's wrong?!" She grabbed the steering wheel and spun it to the left, avoiding a crash with a parked car on the side of the road.

The screeching stopped and Michael quickly grabbed the steering wheel again, relieving Tracy of her panicked control over the car. His hearing was opened at the moment to everything around him from some bit of a distance away. The neighborhood was for the most part quiet, so he managed to hear the cursing voice of a young woman.

"Of all the things to sit on," she yelped. Then there was a cell phone ringing.

Michael looked down the street ahead of them. There was a single car and for a few short seconds, his sight zoomed in on that car; he could see the figure of the driver, picking up a phone and flipping it open.

Without a thought, Michael pushed on the gas and honk his horn. As they neared the car the driver moved to the side and waved her arm when they didn't pass. Michael continued to honk his horn.

He could tell the driver turned her head to look at him, but unfortunately, he couldn't make out her face. The car of his stalker accelerated and he followed suit.

"Michael, what are you doing?" Tracy asked in panic, though she stayed surprisingly low in her tone of voice, but he wasn'tt listening. All Michael was focused on was cornering his stalker and forcing her to tell him why she was doing this.

He moved his car up behind her, staying just several inches away. Then he saw the driver taking her arm out through her window, and a small orb of flame struck out from it. Michael turned the wheel in a quick flash and made a sharp 90, driving onto the sidewalk and into a front lawn, barely avoiding being hit a car coming from the opposite direction.

Tracy had screamed for just a moment, but she stayed crouched against her seat, breathing heavily. Michael was also breathing hard, but it took a minute for him to realize it. He looked over to his little sister, seeing the fright that was in her face.

He had almost gotten himself killed. He had almost gotten her killed. What was he thinking? He was afraid of something happening to her because of his stalker and he ended up almost putting her in harm's way himself.

"Tracy, I'm sorry." He crouched down on his seat as well. "I am so sorry. I'm going through something right now that I can't explain."

He reached a hand out to her. "Please forgive me."

She didn't respond right away. When he moved a strain of hair from her face, she gazed at him with her heavy breathing in a look pure wonder. "It's okay," she said solemnly. "I forgive you."

He leaned to her and they embraced quietly. He then swore to himself that he would never endanger her life like this again.

* * *

_We can't take our families for granted. When that happens we become careless with them; their trust in us is put on the line, and sometimes more. They're essential to out lives. We can't be reckless with them. We have to love them with everything we have._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To be Continued_


	12. Trust

Chapter 12 "Trust"

_It's essential to every kind of relationship. Without it, there is no surviving. It makes it harder when you know that you can't rely on someone to be a hundred percent honest._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

The previous night was something Michael wished he could forget. An incident he would happily trade for his memory of that first night with his license, but that wasn't an option.

It was still early in morning and the rest of his family was still asleep. He was standing outside of Tracy's bedroom, quietly watching her sleep. How could he have put her life in such danger? He kept beating himself up over it. Had he been driven that mad?

The past night he had been going through everything in his head yet again, only more determined to come to some solution that hadn't been noticeable before.

His cell phone rang and he quickly answered, not wanting to wake his little sister up, he answered in a whisper.

"I just woke up, Michael," Wendy said from the other end. "Why did you call me house this early?"

"I had a run in with that stalker last night," he told her. "I can't give you all the details right now; we need to meet. I was doing some researching last night and I think I found something that might get me to remember that night I got those marks."

"Alright then. I'll be waiting at the front of my house."

"Meet you in a bit."

Michael turned put his cell phone away and stepped back into Tracy's bedroom door. She was silent, and safe - but for how long? What if the danger ended up coming right to his doorstop? It couldn't happen. He couldn't let that happen.

Michael needed to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.

He turned from Tracy's sleeping sight and went to the bathroom to get ready. Without knowing it, Tracy had been awake since he had opened her bedroom door and had listened in on his phone conversation. As soon as he was gone, she awoke and closed her door.

* * *

It was a good thing her brother took long showers, she would need that time to work out how she was going to stay out of his radar once she was inside the back of his car, and how she would keep the rest of the family from getting worried.

_Maybe I can leave a note saying I went out with Michael. Yes, that would do._ Now she just had to get dressed and cozy herself inside Michael's car.

* * *

Wendy was waiting outside of her house when Michael arrived. She ran inside and hugged him rather fiercely. Michael honestly didn't expect that much strength from her petite form.

"Alright now, I got that out of the way, so-" Her fist smashed against his shoulder with the same astonishing force; Michael couldn't help but yelp.

"Ouch!" He looked at her in bewilderment. "What was that for?"

"For putting yourself in danger last night." She punched her fist at him again. "And that one was for also endangering your sister's life."

All the anger she was feeling towards him was justified. Michael couldn't deny that. He looked away from her in shame. At least it wasn't his mother.

"What were you thinking?" Wendy's voice grew louder. "You nearly got killed. Please, don't not be this desperate to finding this person. It's not smart, or safe to be clearer."

"I know, okay." Michael forced himself to look at her in the eyes. "I know."

She raised a finger to him with a stern expression. "Don't ever do it, again."

"I won't."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

He repeated himself when she began to repeat herself as well. He now noticed Wendy's eyes being a bit watery and red. Now the weight of guilt and shame over his stupidity from last night was increased.

Michael pulled her into a hug, which she reluctantly fell into.

"Let's get going. It's going to be an hour drive to this place," he said.

He started the car and took off.

As before, he was unaware of his sister, who was now hidden in a curl behind Wendy's seat, under a blanket where Michael had left his backup the other day.

Tracy knew An hour was going to leave her very sore. This made her have second thoughts, but there was no changing her mind now. Wherever they were going, she was going.

"So remind me where we're heading again," Wendy said to Michael as they went back inside his car after grabbing a quick breakfast.

"We're going to a university where this doctor works," he explained. "He specializes in hypnotic therapy - mainly, memory retrieval."

"Do you think that would work?" she asked, frowning.

"I know it's a long shot, but it's worth trying. I need to remember that night from last month."

Wendy couldn't help but shake her head in uncertainty.

"I don't know about this. What if it works, but-" she paused for a moment before finishing. "what you remember might not be good."

"If it's something that will help me find out who this stalker is, then it"s worth it," Michael said in resolve.

Wendy's frown didn't disappear. Everything Michael was doing and saying was true, but it was still dangerous. If his stalker was keeping good tabs, then he or she could intervene in his attempt to remember with this therapist's help. Different scenarios formed in her head, each one was as bad as the last.

I can't think about that. She had to be there for him. This was something they had to do, so to get to the bottom of this.

"I'll be right there with you, then." She took one of his hands and held it tight the rest of the drive.

When they finally arrived at the university, Michael hesitated before stepping out of his car.

* * *

Tracy waited a minute after she heard both he and Wendy close their doors shut to toss the blanket off of her. She popped her head up to the window, catching her brother and his girlfriend walking out of the parking lot and onto a courtyard, arm-in-arm.

Whatever was going with Michael, Tracy was glad that he at least had someone to stand beside him. A part of her was jealous that it was Wendy and not her, though. She had always shared a close bond with her brother, much closer than with her sisters, even.

But she was going to be finding out what it was that Michael was mixed up in, today. Or at the very least she would discover a part of the story.

Tracy unlocked the door and stepped out of the car. She only spared a second to stretch herself out; the car ride had definitely left her bones in a frit. She ran after her brother, not wanting to lose sight of him in the dozens of people that were walking through the courtyard, or sitting on the green-trimmed lawn.

Once she got to a certain distance from them, she started to move at a steady pace. If her brother were to turn around, she wanted enough space between them so that he wouldn't recognize her.

Tracy walked with good precision for several minutes, until she followed Michael and Wendy into one the campus buildings. Entering the lobby, she ducked behind a trash can, peaking her head out to see them approaching the front desk. After briefly speaking to the secretary, they turned around and walked to the nearest bench.

Tracy stayed crouched behind the trash can. The man who was sitting down on the bench next to the it spotted the girl and coughed to make her aware of his presence.

Tracy panicked, but only flinched on the inside. "I'm trying to find out what my brother's hiding from our family." she quickly explained to him.

The man looked to his side before saying, "If that's the case, I hope your legs can take it."

All Tracy could think of for responding was to grin.

"But for the record, it's not good to be diving in on somebody else's business," the man then added. He stood up to depart. "I'm just saying."

He walked to the door and tilted his head to her. Tracy just frowned and poked her sight back to Michael and Wendy. It was another minute before the secretary at the front desk called to them and they walked into one of the elevators. Tracy went over to the doors as soon they closed and watched as the light above the doorway moved across the numbers until stopping on the five.

She decided to take the stairs, fearing the elevator doors would open and they would be standing right on the other side and her cover was blown.

She reached the fifth floor in heavy breath. "I need to exercise more," she said to herself.

Through the stairway's door, Michael's voice could be heard. Tracy slightly pulled the door back to listen in and caught her brother in mid-sentence. "- your sessions can help me."

"Well, I promise to do my best," said an older man's voice.

"And thank you for taking him in on such short notice," Wendy told the older man.

"I'm here to help people with these sort of problems. Now why don't we step inside. Barbara, you can take your lunch."

"Thank you, sir."

A door closed. Tracy slid her head through, and watched the only person left in a small waiting room take her purse and disappear into the first opening elevator in the hallway.

This was her lucky day.

Tracy walked out from the door and tiptoed to the only door in the waiting room.

If she just kept quiet and no one walked by in the hall and spotted her, Tracy would get her answers.

If they were answers she would not like and they would change how she looked at her brother - that was what Tracy was really afraid of finding out.

* * *

_Trust is a fragile thing. It's hard to build and regain, but pretty easy to destroy. When it comes to deciding whether to regain trust, there▒s just having to ask if it's worth regaining it._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	13. Memories

Chapter 13 "Memories"

_They're a part of all of us. Some are good, some are bad. We always look back on them in wonder and to examine our lives. It can kills us when there's some important memories that we unfortunately lose and try desperately to retrieve._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

When they went inside the room, Dr. Olsen gestured Michael over to the bed-like chair that was beside a sofa. Michael laid down on it, while Wendy took a seat next to the doctor on the sofa.

"Now this may take a while to work," Dr. Olsen told him.

"That's okay. I just want to remember."

"Doctor Olsen, is this dangerous?" Wendy asked, fearfully.

"Repressed memories are tricky." The doctor sighed, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "They can fight to keep themselves buried. Michael has to fully open his mind for this to work."

Open his mind. That could be dangerous in more ways than one for Michael. Mainly because Wendy was here. He imagined revealing his deepest fantasies about the two of them under the doctor's trance.

"Now are you ready?" Dr. Olsen asked. He was seated right beside him, taking out a chained watch.

"Yeah, let's get to it," he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

Wendy kneeled forward, closer to him. "I'll be right here incase something happens."

He nodded and smiled when her expression became sore.

"Now then, let's get started." Dr. Olsen raised his arm, the watch dangling from his hand. He put it over Michael, hovering; he concentrated on it like he was supposed to, focusing his sight only on the object as it started to swing from side-to-side.

"I want you to relax. Forget about the two of us being here. Block out any noise other than my voice."

Michael's senses started to do the opposite. He was now feeling every bit of wrinkles from the leather chair, the voices and heartbeats of hundreds from the building and outside on the campus sounded to him. He could smell mainly coffee and perfume of various kinds.

Just close it off, he told himself mentally.

The noises slowly began disappearing, the smells went away and he started to feel numb.

"Think back to a month ago, Michael." Though he could hear him, Dr. Olsen's voice sounded very distant to him. ⌠Go back to that day that you passed your driver's test."

Slowly but surely, the sight of the swinging clock shimmered into black.

In his mind, Michael pictured that hour before he had suddenly blacked out. He saw himself getting a hug from his mother after announcing his success in the test. They drove back to their house; she went back inside, and he drove away, and then┘

His head erupted in a jolt of pain.

He jumped up to a seating position, rubbing at his forehead. Michael thought it was safe to say that first try didn't work out so well.

"Are you alright?" Wendy was right beside him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He shook his head, still feeling a small pinch. "Lets try again."

"You might want to wait a minute," Dr. Olsen told him. "The mind is a fragile organ."

"I can take it," he insisted to the doctor.

"Michael, don't be stupid." Wendy eyed him, insistently. He slowly nodded, not being able to ignore the twinge of fear prickling from her eyes.

"Alright, let's give it a minute then."

When he laid back down, Dr. Olsen started again, and once more, Michael went back to when he had passed his test, leaving his mother at the house and then leaving, and then . . .

He jumped up with his head smashing from side-to-side within his skull, wildly.

A few minutes late, they gave it a third time, which ended in the same results.

"Michael, are sure you want to keep going?" Wendy asked.

He nodded in persistence. "Yes, I need to remember. If just a few images make out of there, it could be worth it."

"Alright then." Even though Wendy nodded, he knew that she was wishing that he would forget about this. He understood, but despite the aching pain in every molecule of his head, he had to keep going.

The next few tries didn't get any better. Michael waited a full ten minutes before going again. He laid back down and closed off all his senses, except for his hearing of Dr. Olsen's voice.

"Think back to that day," he said once again. "Keep going after you dropped your mother off.\"

The events played out in Michael's head, again. He dropped his mother off at the house and he drove down the street. The pain came, but he pushed passed it. He had to know. The image in his head dampened, becoming hazy, but it was still there.

Michael could see himself continuing to drive until reaching the end of the street. In front of his car, he thought he saw a figure. The blurry image made it impossible for this person to be identified. A few moments passed, and Michael saw another figure in front of him, taller, more controlled in posture.

The pain ached, but Michael fought it. He tried to clear away the haziness, so he could see the person. He had to get a face, it could mean everything.

"There is a person approaching me," he said, barely aware of it.

_"Who is it?"_

It took a second before Michael recognized the distant voice as Dr. Olsen.

"I can't see him."

_"Try to, Michael."_

"I can't, it's too hard."

The pain was becoming too much. He could feel his skull thrashing, hiss head yelling to be released from this enormous amount of agony.

_"Michael."_ It was Wendy. He had almost not recognized her voice. "_Come on."_

"I'm trying, but I still can't see him."

_"You can do it. You're strong."_

Her voice was becoming a distant echo, the pain was becoming too much. He forced his hearing to open up again, so he could listen to her wonderful, soothing voice.

"_You can do it_," she continued to say.

Yes, he could do it. He had to. The blurry image of that figure started to clear once more. He could now make out a suit.

"Hello, Michael." It was an elderly man's cool and concrete sounding voice. "I'm happy to meet you."

The face soon cleared and Michael could finally see it. The man had a short set of light hair, a stern face, and horn-rimmed glasses.

He finally had a face of his apparent kidnapper.

The man with the horn-rimmed glasses.

Michael rose from his seat in exhaustion. He pulled back his hair and felt sweat on his hand. He then realized that one of his legs was shaking, he seized it and relaxed back down on the chair.

"What did you see?" Wendy asked. She sat next to his legs, keeping a hand gripped on one of his wrists.

"I saw a man," he said. "A man with horn-rimmed glasses."

"What now then, Michael? Do you want to keep going?" Dr. Olsen asked him.

Michael; thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. "Yeah, one more time."

"Are you sure?" Wendy asked in concern.

"It will be fine." He then quickly added. "I want to hear your voice, again."

She nodded and went back to sit next to Dr. Olsen as he started swinging his watch over Michael, once more. This time, Michael went back to when he reached the end of the street. The first figure - still blurry in image - appearing in front of his car. The second figure approaching, only this time, his image was clear.

The scene changed and all Michael could see was a blue light, and the shapes of two people standing over him. There was also a distant beeping noise.

The same thrashing pain hit his head, but both Dr. Olsen and Wendy's voice came again. They encouraged him to fight the pain, to remember the event as best as he could.

The scene began to clear; the two figures were becoming more noticeable. Soon he recognized the man with the horn-rimmed glasses and the other was a bald man with dark skin. They both had the same stone-cold expressions. Both seemed to have no regret of their actions. Michael was a bit afraid to go on, but he knew that he had to.

He couldn't hear what it was they were saying. The place they were all in was still blurry, but Michael could still hear the beeping sound. The image of a heart monitor appeared before him, and then a bag of blood - his blood.

The images disappeared and Michael sat back up, again. His body was sweating and shaking like before.

"Well?" Wendy asked, kneeling in front of him.

"I remember enough now," he said shakily. He looked over to the doctor, who was sitting on the sofa, patiently. "Thank you, Doctor Olsen."

The man nodded without a word.

Michael gave himself a minute before standing up and walking to the door.

"Now we have something to work with," he told Wendy.

She curled the side of her lip. "This is going to get more dangerous, isn't it?" she whispered so Dr. Olsen didn't hear them.

Michael just nodded.

From the other side of the door, they heard some sort of argument taking place. One of the people sounded young and familiar to Michael. They opened the door and walked in on Dr. Olsen's secretary, Barbara, trying to keep a grip on a struggling Tracy as she tried to practically drag her towards the elevators.

"Tracy, what are you doing here?" he said in shock.

"This girl was standing right outside the door, listening in on your session, sir," the secretary said to Dr. Olsen.

"She's my sister." Michael walked over to them and released Tracy from Barbara's hold.

"Why are you here, Tracy?"

She looked at him narrow-eyed. "Don't try and give me the third degree. You tell me why you're here."

This was not what Michael had expected. He should have been able to hear Tracy in the car, but he had been closing himself off from his abilities since the prom. He looked to Wendy, who was lost for words.

"Alright, let's talk," he said to his little sister.

* * *

_What lies in our past defines us, but if we forget, we lose our way. So it's important to know your past, no matter how difficult it is when remembering hard times. After those hard times are done, we just leave it in our memories and move forward._

_- Michael Mules, Journal Entry_

_To Be Continued_


	14. Truth

Chapter 14 "Truth"

_It's the best thing - or at least one of the best things to have and to give. Truth is what sets a person free, but there are cases when the truth is better left untold._

- Michael Mules, Journal entry

* * *

It was a basic fact that women of all ages became over-tempered over any mistake a man would make, even the smallest of mistakes. Though Tracy had promised to Michael that she wouldn't say a word about his abilities, she wasn't saying a word to him now.

Wendy could understand that she was upset at her brother for not having told her about his abilities, but she would have to eventually let it go.

Over a week had passed since they had been to the therapist and Michael had spent most of his free time going over all the details from the small pieces of the lost memories he had retrieved during his session. Michael would have gone to Dr. Olsen again, only that the first session had cost him almost every cent he had.

This Saturday was one of gloom, as the sky was pale and the wind picked up slowly every hour. Wendy arrived at the Mules home to find Tracy answering the door with a blunt look.

"If you're looking for Mr. Incredible, he's in his room, trying to figure who Horn-Rimmed Glasses is," she said in a grunt. "Or H.R.G if you think that's a mouthful."

"Tracy, you can't stay mad at him. He was too afraid to tell anyone."

The younger girl stared at her in dismay with her mouth open. "You knew the whole time about him being a superhero."

"I just caught him using his abilities," Wendy pointed out to her. "He never confided in me about it."

"He still didn't tell me anyways, and I always went to him with my secrets." Tracy pushed passed her in a sigh.

"Tell Mr. Incredible I went over to Jackie's," Tracy said, walking across the front lawn sidewalk. "He's supposed to be babysitting, but I don't need looking after."

"You know, Mr. Incredible is already taken," Wendy yelled to her as she started down the sidewalk. "We can try and think of a superhero name for him, together. I haven't had any luck by myself."

Tracy just looked back at her with an annoyed look on her face.

That did know better.

Like Wendy had said before, eventually, she would have to get over it.

Wendy walked into the house and went into Michael's bedroom, where he was sitting on his desk, laptop opened, and a stack of papers were sitting next to it. She walked up behind, he turned and said "Hey," very faintly before turning back his gaze to the laptop's screen.

On the screen was a page with sketch drawings of the two men that he had seen, which he had uploaded into the laptop.

"Those are good," she said.

"And it only took that sketch artist Darwin from school three tries," Michael explained. "He said he was just happy to get the practice."

"Where are you posting them?"

"A couple of community message boards that have a lot of people from around the country." The screen changed to a webpage with the two sketches on a message board page.

"Hopefully, we'll get lucky," she said.

"I'm going to do more than this." He grabbed a few of the papers from the stack and handed them to Wendy; they were copies of the drawings and had huge, capitalized writing on it saying: SEARCHING FOR THESE MEN, and in the corner Michael's cell phone number.

"You're really putting a whole lot of effort into this, aren;t you?"

Michael spoke without even looking at Wendy. "Well, these guys have my answers and I'm going to get them, no matter what it takes."

"Just remember, you're graduating in less than three weeks and you have finals coming up," she reminded him. "Don't let this distract you from the rest of your life, Michael."

He still didn't turn to look at her. "I know I have other things to think about, I just need a good start on finding them. I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and waiting for these them to come and abduct me, again."

Wendy frowned. Taking a good look at Michael, she saw how sunken his eyes were and also noticed his fingers moving with little precision in typing on the keyboard. It didn't look like he had rested at all last night.

She took a hold of his hands, ignoring his angry stare. "Michael, you need to rest. Your eyes are scarlet red. You won't be able to keep looking for these guys if you're exhausted. Come on."

Michael reluctantly allowed her to close his laptop and walk him to his bed. She laid him down gently and eased in next to him as he slowly relaxed on the mattress. She kept him in her arms while whispered soothing words into his ear.

Eventually, Michael fell into a slumber and began snoring. They weren't loud-killing, to her relief. She stayed laying there with him for a long time, just enjoying the state of closeness she felt with him, here, now.

This was how she wished it was more often, but because of everything that had occurred to her boyfriend, this simple joy of comfort just wasn't in the cards for the two of them that often.

* * *

"Tracy isn't your brother going to get mad at you."

Tracy eyed her friend Jackie with an eyebrow raised. The two of them were sitting on the floor of Bridgette's bedroom, eating out of her box of sweets that she kept under her bed to keep her parents from knowing about it.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you left the house without saying anything," Jackie pointed out. She always had the bad habit of speaking out inconvenient truths.

"I told his girlfriend I was leaving, didn't I?" Jackie crooked her head. She apparently noticed the emphasize on the word girlfriend.

"Are you just upset that he has a girlfriend and spends more time with her than he does with you now?" she asked her.

That speaking uncomfortable truth of Jackie could only slightly annoy Tracy so much. She growled at her friend, low pitched, which got her to become a little frightened and turn away to reach for another chocolate kiss.

Her jealous of that girl, Wendy; she wanted to laugh, but a voice in her head said not to laugh at the truth.

When Michael had gotten his abilities, the first thing he should have done was written to her about them. Even though she wouldn't have believed it until he had shown them to her in person, she should have been his first confident.

There was a knock on the door and Jackie quickly gathered all the small candy wrappers that were laying on the floor, placed them in the box and slid them under the bed mere seconds after the knock on her door.

"Girls, how is everything?" Her mother said from the other side of the door.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Jackie answered in a flush.

The door opened and her mother's popped her head in. "Dinner is ready. Tracy, I think you should head home. Your parents probably have dinner ready, too."

"Right." Tracy stood, saying goodbye to Jackie and her mother and left the bedroom.

With any luck, Michael was too distracted with finding his horn-rimmed glasses, or his new girl toy to even notice she was gone..

Maybe I should cut him some slack. The thought made her sigh in frustration. How would she have acted if she had discovered she had super powers? She couldn't really answer that.

As Tracy slowly walked down the street, she didn't notice that a car was steadily droving a short distance behind her.

Michael awoke with a warm comfort over his entire body. He carefully turned himself over on his bed to faced a sleeping Wendy. It felt him as if moments like these were rare for them. Maybe he was letting his search for H.R.G. distract him from the rest of his life.

Her eyes stuttered open and her mouth formed into a hazy a smirk.

"Thanks for finally getting me to sleep," he whispered.

"It's a good thing that your parents haven't walked in on this," Wendy said. "Though I guess they could have walked in on worse."

"Want to risk it?"

She smacked him lightly on his cheek.

"I was just kidding," they laughed together, enjoying the blissful moment of humor. "Beside with Tracy here-"

"-Oh I forgot to tell you, she left for her friend's house when I got here," Wendy told him.

"What!" Michael jumped from his bed and rushed to the door. "She's not supposed to go over to her friends when our parents are out."

He rushed out of his bedroom and ran for the front door, but when he swung it open he sighed in a huff of relief - Tracy had just been reaching for the door when he had gotten it.

"Tracy, you know better than to go out when mom and dad aren't home!" he shouted at her.

"Relax, I'm fine and your friend made sure I got home alright," she said, waving her hand to push him away.

"Wait-what friend?"

"Your friend, the girl who was in the car," she explained. "She said she would follow me in her car until I got to the house, and she told me to tell you that she hopes you're doing better after she gave you those marks on your neck."

Silence fell. Michael looked over to Wendy, who just appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking wide-eyed with her mouth opened, as she had heard what Tracy said.

Michael took Tracy in his arms, and ignored her objective growls towards him. Tracy looked from Wendy to her brother in confusion. "What is it?"

There was now a cold shiver running up Michael's spine. He needed to find these people as soon as possible.

* * *

_Honesty is a double dagger. Depending on what each one is, it can heal us, protect us, relieve, and hurt us. Probably, what's important that it's a truth you want to have._

- Michael Mules, Journal entry

_To Be Continued_


	15. Danger

Chapter 15 "Danger"

_It's what we usual try to avoid, but some are drawn to it, like an addiction. And others are simply cursed to keep running into harms way.. When that happens, we just have to be ready._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

For Michael, everything he thought and believed in came from the stories of books, movies, and TV shows. He didn't have any real-life heroes, - not including his parents, as they had never been in this sort of situation - he just never thought one like in any of those stories existed.

Now Tracy was telling him he could be that sort of hero in reality.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked her the day after Tracy's encounter with the unknown woman. "I can't just go clobber them with my abilities. I don't even know how to find them."

Tracy spun on the chair of his desk while Wendy was seated next to him on his bed. The three of them were locked up in his room, and for the dozen time going over everything they knew about these people who were attacking, stalking, and kidnapping them.

Ending her spin, she frowned at him. "Once we find out where these guys live, yeah, why not?"

"I'm actually with your sister on this," Wendy said. She took a baseball that was lying on the floor and started tossing it from one hand to the other, getting rid of her aggravation with the small activity.

Michael looked between her and Tracy, waiting for one of them to add a part of a plan that he hadn't been involved in making.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do to the bad guys?" his little sister asked.

"It's not really that simple."

Tracy sighed, and began to spin on the chair again. "Comic books are misleading then."

"Tomorrow Tracy, we're picking you up from school and you're going to describe that girl as best as you can to Darwin," Wendy said, now tossing the baseball high into the, almost hitting the ceiling each time.

Tracy merely nodded and changed back to the other conversation. "But what else are we supposed to do when we find them."

That question had been hovering within Michael's head for a while now. What would he do when he finally came face-to-face with these people? One thing would be getting answers from them about how they knew of his abilities and why they had been doing all these things to him.

But then what?

Should he try and get them arrested for what he knew they had done not only to him, but also the Jamesons and the couple who had nearly been killed on the night of his prom.

"I don't know if telling the police would do any good," he admitted out loud. "We wouldn't be able to prove anything that they've done. The fire, the car crash, my kidnapping. How would we be able to link them to it."

"You remember the two men who abducted you," Wendy pointed out. "That should go a long way."

"I vaguely remember them." he sighed and laid his back down on the bed. "That can be easily dropped into the trash."

"And from what we can tell, these people seem to have a lot of money," Tracy added. "To be able to abduct people, erase their memories of it, and cause all these 'accidents' without getting caught."

Wendy lightly threw the ball at the younger girl, who caught it and started tossing it up in the air like she had been doing.

⌠And they obviously have people with super powers like you, Michael."

"That would make a fight with them all the more dangerous."

"But it doesn't matter how dangerous it gets; we need to find these people, soon," Tracy said in a more urgent manner than she had spoken before. "For all we know, next they'll be coming right into our doorstep and do God knows what to the whole family."

"She's right." Wendy looked down at Michael, who now had his face covered in his arms. "We should get to there doorstep first."

Sighing, Michael sat back up and on instinct raised his hand to catch the baseball thrown by Tracy. Following them, he began tossing the ball into the air, only he carelessly hit the ceiling with it.

"I'm open to suggestions."

Tracy nodded behind her to his laptop on the desk. "Check to see if anyone has recognized H.R.G. or the bald man," she suggested.

"If there's nothing else," he said, shrugging.

The three of them gathered together at his desk as he went into the message board and found a few responses to his post with the sketches of his two kidnappers. These were to his disappointment, people asking why he wanted to find these men.

"Look at the last one," Wendy said, pointing to it on the screen.

Michael read it and smiled.

"This guy says he saw the man with the horn-rimmed glasses," he said in a very light tone that he rarely had nowadays.

"Where?" Tracy asked.

"Here in L.A. a few weeks ago." he read the message again. "He remembers him because he had been talking to a young woman who he hit on later but she scared him off by saying that our guy was her father and he was a former army general who would clobber him for the sleazy moves he put on her."

They were all thinking the same thing: This could very well be the girl who approached Tracy on the street the day before.

"The girl was pretty intimidating herself and because he has a friend that works at this hotel, he's still seen her there up until just yesterday."

"The Wanders Hotel," Wendy read. "That's downtown."

"Then that means we're going to the hotel?" Tracy said with a rather large smirk on her face.

"Who says either of you are coming," Michael said sharply. "Tracy, I've put your life in danger too many times now. I could be walking into a bad situation and I don't want either of you there if things get ugly."

A quick jolt of pain hit his head, courtesy of Wendy's hand. "Don't think for one second you're going there by yourself. This could be too much just for you to handle."

"We're going to be there with you," Tracy said in the same sharp tone that her brother had given them. "Like it or lump it."

* * *

That next day, Michael stood at the front entrance to the Wanders Hotel, with Wendy and Tracy at his either side. As far as his parents were concerned, he had taken Tracy to the movies with him and Wendy, so he had to make sure that they all returned home in one piece. He honestly couldn't say which confrontation he would want.

"Did the guy say she was in the top floor?" Wendy asked in a bit of a stutter.

"Yeah, that's where he had first seen her, coming out of the elevator with her _father_."

Wendy swallowed hard. Tracy noticed that she bit the side of her lips and started twisting one of her feet on the pavement.

"Are you okay?" she asked the older girl.

"Oh... yeah, definitely... nothing wrong here." Now this girl was making it obvious.

"We're about to confront a woman who can throw balls of fire at us," Tracy blurted out. Her brother frowned at her. "We all feel the same way, here."

"Tracy, she's scared of heights, alright," he told her.

"Oh, well it's not like we're going to be hanging from the side of the building." This didn't seem to help; Wendy still had a pale face and continued to make s.

Michael stepped in front of them and turned around to face his companions. "Look the second it seems like something bad is going to happen, we're out of there," he told the two of them. "If I say to run - run. Got it?"

Both girls nodded. Michael sighed and turned back to the entrance.

"Okay then. Lets go."

They steadily walked into the hotel and went into the first elevator they could find. No one said anything as they stood in small space, alone. The boring music that usually played in an elevator and their steady rising within the shaft were the only sounds for that long minute.

The door opened; as they exited the elevator, Michael took out the sketch Darwin had made earlier from Tracy's description. They would ask anyone they saw if they had seen this woman.

His insides were rumbling, just like the day he took his driver's test, only this one was ten times worse. This situation was much more nerve-wrecking than taking that simple test like.

Turning on a corner, he caught a person as he was leaving his room and showed him the drawing.

"This lady has the room a few doors away," he said, pointing a short distance to the opposite wall, where a hotel cleaning lady was just entering with into.

"Thank you." Michael started jogging towards the door, Wendy and Tracy at his heels. It closed behind the cleaning lady just as he had made it. He raised his arm to knock, but hesitated.

"Hotel rooms aren't cleaned unless the person who is staying in it isn't there, right?"

"Usually, that's a courtesy," Tracy said. "Like when we went to Catalina Island."

"I have a plan."

He quickly gave them an explanation, and a few minutes later he and Tracy stood at an end of the hallway, heads poking from the corner, while Wendy stood at the door. It finally opened and the cleaning lady stepped out, pulling her cart along and she nearly jumped in fright of seeing a bright-smiling Wendy standing right in front of her.

"Hi, sorry to bother you, but I'm doing a survey on the employment life within hotels and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

"Um, I guess I could answer some things," the woman said. "But I do have other rooms-"

"No problem." Wendy took her by the arms and pulled the woman forward, away from the opened door of the room. "This will only take a minute."

She took out a small notepad and pencil from Michael's car and started asking her any question she could think of about how working at a hotel effected her in every way.

From the far end of the hall, Michael and Tracy jumped from out of the corner and began sprinting as quietly as possible. They stopped a few paces behind Wendy and the cleaning lady. Michael took a small breath before tip-toeing the rest of the way in through the door.

Tracy then followed, gasping quietly, having held her breath the entire run. Once they both had disappeared inside, Wendy abruptly ended her Q&A and walked away, and turned at the next corner, leaving the slightly confused cleaning lady alone in the hallway. She closed the room behind her, without knowing of the two trespassers.

The room was rather glamorous. There was a rather shinning chandelier in the sitting room and in the adjacent bedroom; its bed was larger than any either of the Mules siblings had ever slept in. Tracy whistled in envy.

"I told you these people were loaded."

"Come on, lets look for something we can use," he instructed her as he went into the bedroom and started opening each drawer and scoffing through it. "Something that would incriminate them."

"Gotcha." Tracy looked inside the cabinets in the sitting room and found one with all kinds of sweets. As if thinking somebody was watching her, she looked to her right and left before stuffing several items into her coat pocket.

"Find anything?" she asked her brother.

"No, I..." Michael trailed off in an instant; Tracy stepped away from the cabinets cautiously walked over to the bedroom, hoping this woman wasn't suddenly in the room there with them, and holding her brother in a death grip. She instead saw Michael standing paralyzed, looking up at the ceiling with his mouth opened.

Tracy's gaze followed his and she too became frozen: On the ceiling was writing in what looked like the burning surface of the ceiling itself.

**I KNEW YOU WERE COMING. ENJOY WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR DAY.**

"We need to leave, now," Michael said in a hush.

Before either of them moved an inch. The ceiling became a radiant color of red and in mere seconds, ashes began falling in sizes of dust, then chunks of rock. The writing was burned away into the flames, and Tracy finally found her voice, so to scream in horror.

The roof chose that instant to collapse right above her.

* * *

_Danger can be attractive in a sense, but there are consequences to following that attraction. Others can be hurt besides you. So be sure the danger is worth the risk._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	16. Safe

Chapter 16 "Safe"

_We all want to stay shielded from the cruelty and harshness that is nearly everywhere. But that shield is breached no matter what we do._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

Even though she wanted to move, Tracy was paralyzed almost completely; only her mouth was now functioning; the whole world could hear her scream of terror as she watched the burning ceiling come down on her.

She barely felt a pair of arms seize her off of the floor and carry her in a dash out of the bedroom. In that time, Tracy's eyes were still stuck looking upward: The hotel room's entire ceiling was crumbling into flames. Ashes and small pieces of flames were falling over them.

Michael still had her in his arms when running for the door. He only put her down once they were out in the hallway.

"Wendy!" he yelled in fear.

"Michael, the entire places is burning," Tracy warned.

They both examined the hallway and saw the ceiling turning an angry red and the burning ashes creeping up within them. Alarms sounded, but sparks erupted from the popping light bulbs and the fire alarms quickly.

All the doors in the long hallway opened; and people came tumbling out, screaming from the horror that they were now in. Panic ensued and the hallway became filled with dozens of people running for safety.

Michael kept Tracy in his arms as they went with the crowd. Her brother did his best to keep others from crushing into him while trying to move ahead in the stream of fleeing people.

"I don't see Wendy," he repeated every few seconds. He continued to look in every direction for her.

Tracy didn't want to say anything wrong that would upset Michael, but she didn't see the older girl anywhere either. She was supposed to have kept watch outside if the woman returned and distract her. The room had gone into flames in just a few short minutes after they had gotten inside. She must have still been going around when the entire floor had erupted into chaos.

Finally, they reached the exit door to the stairs. Michael stopped in the middle of the crowd and turned Tracy to face him.

"Alright, I want you to get downstairs," he told her. "All the way down to the first floor and get out of the building."

"What, Michael, no." She was shaking her head rapidly. "You can't stay here. For all you no, Wendy is already ahead of us."

"I can't take the chance if she's still up here."

People were knocking themselves against the two of them even more now that they were standing still. It was becoming crazier by the second as the fire seemingly progressed through the entire floor.

"If I don't find her, I'll meet you outside. Please, just go, Tracy."

More ashes were falling and even though Tracy didn't want to move an inch away from Michael, she had to nod and allow him to push her through the door.

"Don't let them push you aside, just keep going until you get downstairs!" he yelled to her as he disappeared into the hallway, squeezing through everybody else who was going in his opposite direction.

A teary-eyed Tracy turned away from the view of the hallway and started down the steps, staying away from the railing side out of fear of being pushed off of it.

Her thoughts were on both Michael and Wendy. What is she was still trapped somewhere in that floor? What if both Wendy and her brother died in this fire? She shook the terrible isea away. Michael was doing what he should be doing.

Tracy had told him to be a hero after all.

* * *

Michael raced through the hallway that was being wrapped in fire from the ceiling to the walls now.

"Wendy!" he yelled, following a cough.

He had to find her, if she died - he didn't even want to think about it.

"Wendy, where are you!"

A person walked out from a room who he thought to be her for a second but then saw the woman's face. He told her to run and continued down the hallway.

"WENDY!" But there was no answer.

_Use your powers, stupid._

He closed his eyes and focused through the roaring sound of the fire eating away at everything around him. It took only a few seconds to locate a familiar whimpering; he could smell Wendy's perfume as well, and so he started down the hallway again, now following his senses.

His eyes remained closed but it didn't matter, because pure instincts were guiding him. He jumped away from fire that was moping through the floor and stayed in the center of the hallways, away from the walls.

Now Wendy began screaming for help. Michael followed her cries into a hotel room. Opening his eyes, he saw her in the worst position: she was pinned onto the floor in the middle of the sitting room by a concrete pillar that fell from inside the ceiling; what was worse was the fire coming down from the pillar slowly, as if tormenting her with the coming of death.

"Wendy, I'm here." Michael rushed to her side, examining her condition much closely. She also had a cut on her forehead and the pillar was pinned onto her thighs.

Too her side, he finally noticed a second person lying face-down under the pillar - only he wasn't moving. There was also a pool of blood coming out from under him.

"I came in because he was yelling for help," she explained.

Stepping over to the man, Michael checked his throat. "He isn't breathing. He's gone."

"Michael get out of here," Wendy argued in tears. "This fire is spreading too fast. Hurry out of here-"

"No. You must be stupid if you think I'm leaving you to die." Michael shook his head simultaneously. "We're getting out of here, together."

"I'm scared," Wendy said in a quiet whimper.

"It's alright." Michael took her hand. "I'm not going to leave you."

They both looked at the long pillar that was stilled being crept over by the fire; the rest of the room was also slowly burning away.

If Michael were to develop super strength, now would be the right time. He took a deep breath and slid his hands under the pillar; with all the force he could summon, he pulled upward, pushing his feet up, trying with every inch of his body to move it, but the pillar must have weighed a ton.

"It's getting closer," warned Wendy, who was watching to fire closing on them wide-eyed.

_Come on. Just a few inches up and move it away._

"Mich-ael┘"

Now Wendy's voice was becoming weak and unfocused.

_I need to get her out of here._

He continued to pull, screaming as every muscle in his body ached in pain. The pillar rose from the floor and off of Wendy's body at last. With a strong force, he threw it away from them.

"Can you stand?"

"Yeah, I think so."

With his help, Wendy slowly eased herself to her feet. They started towards the door, but suddenly they saw in horror that the doorway that was now completely blocked by a wall of fire. Michael spun them around in the direction of the adjacent bedroom.

"The window. I think there's a balcony."

They rushed over, arm-in-arm, through the bedroom to the window-door. They stepped out into the clear air, and shut the door closed behind them.. Wendy began taking heavy breaths and started to seize her coughing.

Michael stepped against the balcony railing, looking over the hotel pool.

"Will they see us up here?" Wendy asked.

Before he said anything, the glass door broke apart behind them, causing Wendy to scream and rush beside him.

"We need to get out of here."

"How? We're up fifteen stores."

He looked down the row of balconies in each floor.

"Grab onto me," Michael told her. "You trust me, right?" In shock, Wendy stared down the long fall to the ground and then the fire that now engulfed the entire floor. She embraced Michael, sliding her arms wrapped around him tightly and together they climbed onto the railing.

Before moving an inch, Michael took a heavy breath, feeling Wendy's grip tighten on him. He kept one arm around her and stepped off the railing; each second he took one step onto a different balcony railing. It quickly became like a dance for him.

When he reached the bottom railing Michael grabbed it with his free hand for a few seconds before going down the rest of the way.

A shaking Wendy didn't let go of her hold on him right away; he led her around the hotel building out into the front street where Tracy was standing on the sidewalk, total fright in her face.

"Tracy," Wendy called.

The younger Mules sibling's frightened face dissolved away when she saw them and ran with delight into her brother's arms.

"Come on, lets get out of here," Michael said to both of them. "We'll wait for an ambulance in the car."

The three of them walked silently to his car. On the front window, there was a piece of paper placed under the wipers. He took picked it up and read it.

See you in two weeks. It will be a graduation to remember.

"What does it say?" Tracy asked.

Michael just said, "It's not over."

* * *

_We all want security, but there are some lives that just don't have that. It leaves them in fear, so what's left is to face the fear and dangers head on._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	17. Preparation

Chapter 17 "Preparation"

_We don't always know what lies ahead, but when we do know, we ready ourselves. If it's danger that's coming, then having a plan is key. Otherwise, you're in for hell._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

It had been a half hour already, but Michael kept running.

The images of everything that had occurred since his abilities first surfaced replayed in his head: the Jameson fire and Marie trapped on the kitchen table; the couple unconscious in their turned over car; Tracy screaming as a flaming ceiling nearly crushed her, and Wendy lying trapped under a pillar, helpless.

All this made Michael continue.

This maniac would do it again, unless he stopped her.

He could feel the sweat cropping out of him, he licked it over his lips and relished in the progress he was making. With this girl, agility would be an asset in the fight.

As he passed a neighbor who was raging leafs in his front lawn, Michael barely nodded in response to his greeting. This neighbor would always start a long conversation with anybody who came along and Michael couldn't be distracted right now.

He ran another six long blocks before finally returning home where Wendy and Tracy were sitting on the steps to the front door, Tracy holding her watch and clicking the timer to stop once he made it to the door.

"How was it?" he asked between his exhausted breaths.

"You beat your old time by two minutes." Tracy put her watch back on her wrist and stood. "Can we call it a day now?"

"Michael, she's right," Wendy said pleadingly. "It has been nonstop jogging, pushups, and pull-ups for you since the hotel. You're overworking yourself."

"I need to be ready." Michael leaned against the wall beside the opened door.

"I'm hoping you're wrong about this, Michael," Wendy said, looking out into the view this street had of the city, including their school. "I don't want this to end up as a fight to the death."

"I don't have a choice," he argued.

"You could run," Wendy blurted out. "We can get in the car and disappear."

"Running doesn't solve anything," Michael protested. "Plus, this woman could just attack Tracy and our family in retaliation."

"Yeah, thiswoman obviously doesn't care if she fries some innocent people in the crossfire," Tracy stated, looking at Wendy angrily for suggesting her brother leave.

Michael walked into the house and went to his bedroom, closing the door behind him, leaving Tracy and Wendy to quietly argue while he changed out of his sweat-dripping cloths.

Once he stepped out of the bedroom, his girlfriend and sister seized the verbal battle and followed him to the kitchen where he got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator.

"Again, I think Wendy and I should be there to back you up," Tracy argued to him. "We could have a water hose with us."

"I already told you, no," Michael took a gulp from his bottle and sat down on the table. "I have to face her alone. I don't want the two of you in harm's way, again."

Both girls sighed in unison. They may not like it that Michael was preparing to face a fire-throwing she-villain solo, but it was the way it had to be.

The next day, Michael locked himself in his room, isolated from the constant berating of Tracy and Wendy. He pushed himself even farther than before. He had emptied his closet hanger and worked on his pull-ups.

_I have to be ready. I need to be able to beat her._

His high school graduation was supposed be a day to look forward to. While his other classmates were in the happy and impatient state, Michael was wishing he had the power to control time so as to never end up in that day.

But there was no changing what was coming. Down in his core, he knew a fight was coming, so he had to be ready.

_You think I'm going to be easy to take down; well you're in for a surprise._

He started on pushups, then sit-ups, ignoring all his body's ongoing pleas to halt and rest. Sweat continued to drip down from him, but it just made him work harder.

Finally, after over an hour of work, he dropped onto his floor in exhaustion, breathing heavily, motionless.

_I'll be ready for you._

* * *

"Michael Mules, will you open the door?"

Tracy was walking out from her bedroom when her mother was standing outside Michael's door, knocking on it every few seconds rather aggressively. She was in another of her agitated states; this wasn't good at all.

_I'm going to have to approach her carefully here._

"Mom, what did he do now?" she asked, sounding as if she wanted the juicy details on a possible misdeed of her brother's.

"Nothing, except keep me standing out here." Her mother emphasized on those lost words.

"I think he fell asleep. Wasn't he working out earlier?"

Her mother frowned. "He's been doing that a lot lately. Do you know what's gotten into him?"

Tracy shrugged and crooked her head. Inside though, she felt guilt over keeping these certain things from her mother. "I didn't know there was something in him."

Her mother ignored the attempt at the light humor. Finally Michael's voice sounded from inside his bedroom, "I'm up, and I'll be out in a minute."

Their mother sighed and rubbed at her face with both hands. "I need you to take some things to your aunts fro me, I'm late for work."

"Fine," he answered back rather aggravated.

"As if he's doing anything important," she blurted to Tracy and to herself.

Tracy followed her mother to her parent's bedroom and helped pick up a mountain of dirty cloths from various places and drop them into two laundry baskets.

"After what's happened with Missy," her mother started to say but trailed off. She looked to Tracy. "Do you know if your brother is keeping anything from me that I should know about?"

Now she was in the hot spot. Wendy had been giving Tracy tips on how to perfectly lie to people; she seemed to have had enough experience with lying to her own parents, that Wendy. Tracy looked to her mother right in the eyes without flinching and resisted the great urge to curl the side of her lips like she always did when being cornered on a secret.

"I don't know, mom."

She stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to read her mind. I'm glad you're not one of those who can, Tracy thought. Her mother blinked and picked up one of the filled up laundry baskets, gesturing her daughter to follow suit.

In the time it took the two of them to split the whites from the darks and lights and dump the first batch into the washing machine, Michael had barely left his room. Their mother went back to her bedroom and came out to the hallway with a taped-up box.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Just take it to your aunt's, please," she said flatly tuning around and rushing back to her room, closing the door behind her.

Michael seemed to ignore their mother's annoyed attitude and went to his car with the box. Tracy got into the car with him and they drove quietlyfor a few minutes.

"I know you have something to say, so just say it," Michael finally said without looking at her.

"Well, mom is getting suspicious with all the working out you've been doing," Tracy explained. "She just asked me before we left if there was anything you were keeping from her."

Her brother sighed. "Did you tell her anything?"

"No. I said I didn't have any clue whether you were keeping something secret." She paused before continuing on. "Michael, I didn't like lying to mom. Doesn't it bother you, too?"

There was a short moment before he answered, "Yes."

"Then lets tell her and dad everything," she said, half expecting him to instantly answer 'no', but he just stayed quiet and drove.

"Aren't you tired of all the lying and covering up about your abilities? Don't say you aren't."

He bit his lip and parked the car into an open space in the middle of the street.

"Okay, this is what's going to happen," he told her. "Once graduation is over, and I've taken care of this woman and gotten a hold of Doctor Suresh, we can tell them. No more secrets."

He raised his hand in a fist, except for his pinky finger. "Deal?"

She took the finger in her own. "Deal."

In just a short week, it would all be settled; it made Tracy breath a little easier. Of course, she knew this was another big step Michael was taking, and she would be there to help him ready for this important day as well.

* * *

_We prepare ourselves for what we know is inevitable. It's OK to be afraid, but we have to be ready at the veryleast. Of course there are things you can't be ready for, no matter what you do. So we just have to be ready to be surprised._

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

_To Be Continued_


	18. Hero Part 1

Chapter 18 "Hero - Part 1"

__

In every person's life, he or she wants to be someone important, someone that matters. We all strive to make something of ourselves, find purpose in this crazy world. Some like me; we want to be the kind of somebody out of a movie, a person fighting for something greater than himself, somebody who is more than the common person, a hero.

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

* * *

It would be tomorrow.

There was no delaying it, no avoiding, or wishing this away.

Tomorrow she would come and it was going to be the two of them. Him against her: Fire versus enhanced acrobatics.

Michael shook his head just thinking about it, while lying down alone in his bedroom. In comparison to her ability, he was a schmuck, as some would put it. Her power was more far out there.

__

Get a grip of yourself, Michael. It has to be one hundred percent confidence when you meet her.

But there was the five-year old child in him saying to run for the hills; to get into his car and drive as far as he can go. If he just kept going without showing his face or speaking to people, avoiding contact in any way, he could disappear.

But no, he had to face this. . . showdown. If not, then he could endanger his family and the girl he loved.

To think, in the part of his mind where fantasies ran around like multiplying bunnies since this amazing discovery, he pictured himself in a costume, facing the bad guys courageously and beating them everything time.

A life like a comic book wasn't glamorous, he now realized.

But he would be getting the fight with the super villain to say the least. _Dr. Suresh, I wish you would have returned my phone calls. _For all he knew, these people had already gotten to him - or like Wendy said, he was one of them. Michael didn't want to believe that one bit.

Whatever was the case with him, Michael was going to be doing this on his own and he was as ready as he could have made himself be in this short time. Hopefully all of the exercising and workouts were going to pay off.

__

And if they don't . . .

He shook the thought away, but only for a moment; if worst came to worst, then hMichael had to make preparations. He had to make sure things were left as descent as it could be for the people he loved.

* * *

"Yes mom, we are going out to eat afterwards, but Michael isn't coming," Angela said into the kitchen's phone. "He's going on his grad night; it's a field trip for the graduates."

She had to listen to her mother badgering about this for a few minutes. Michael came in during that time and sat down on the table to eat the lunch Angela made. Once her mother was done, she said in a flush, "See you tomorrow, mom, bye." and hung up.

"What time is grandma coming," Michael asked with a mouth full of food.

"Just a little bit before the ceremony starts, and swallow before talking." She then took a large portion of food into her mouth.

"So mom . . . "

Her son seemed to be trying to get something out of his mouth, but was having trouble figuring out what exactly those words were.

"What is it there?' she asked cheeringly.

"I just want to say thanks."

"Thanks?"

"For putting up with me, and how I've been acting for a while now," he explained to her. "You've been a good mom and I am who I am thanks to you and dad."

He had never spoken like this to her before. Was it graduating that made him do this, or just simple maturing? Whatever the case, she felt warmed by his words of gratefulness.

"Thank you, son." She took his hand. "None of you kids have ever said this to me."

"I figured it was about time one of us did," he said shrugging.

They stayed quiet before she spoke again. "So, you're graduating."

"Yeah." he nodded in a smirk.

"And we have a present for you, which you'll open tomorrow after the ceremony before leaving," she told him.

Michael just nodded with the same smirk.

* * *

For the last few weeks, the world Tracy knew had been turned upside down. Everything she thought to be a fact or untrue was proven wrong. Before returning home, she thought the idea of a person flying to be ridiculous, but it wasn't.

Her brother had superpowers. There was a woman stalking and attacking him because of it, and she also had superpowers.

His life and her life to the extent were no longer set in the realm of the normal.

She was in her room, alone, sitting at her desk, looking at a history book that she was supposed to be studying on but not really reading it. Instead she was contemplating everything that had occurred and what was still set to happen.

Michael was going to face a human torch and he was forcing his confidents to sit this one out. Tracy had wanted to object but the events at the hotel made her see logic. Perhaps her brother did have a better chance if she and Wendy were not there to get caught in more than they could handle.

But there was another part of her thinking that logic should be dammed and they would tip the scale in his favor.

"Tracy."

She blinked, looking over to her opened door, where Michael was standing.

"Hey, can we talk for a minute?' he asked.

"Yeah, okay," she said a little blank in emotion.

He walked over to her bed, next to the desk and sat down. She noticed how he was rubbing his hands together; Michael always did this when he was struggling to find the words to speak.

"Look . . . I want you to know . . . That I'm glad you found out about all of this," he said to her. "And I wish I had told you myself. You've always been my favorite in this family, the one I could depend on for anything."

Was he telling her this because he thought something might happen to him tomorrow? She wanted to stop him and say that nothing would happen at all, but she also wished to hear whatever else her brother had to say. She let him continue.

"Tracy, you've been brave through out all of this," Michael paused, apparently second-guessing his statement. "Actually, I kind of wish you weren't, because that's why you've walked in on too many hot spots."

Tracy frowned at him. She was over nearly getting killed and just wished that he was as well.

"The point is I want to say thanks, for standing by me and being a stupidly brave kid." He waited a few moments before continuing on. "And if something happens to me, tomorrow - no, you need to hear this," he said as soon as her face became fearful, "if something happens to me, I want you and Wendy to tell the family everything, okay. They'll deserve to know the truth."

That wasn't a hard request at all. Tracy looked away from him, feeling like he was already leaving a burning mark on her, even though nothing bad had happened to him yet.

"You will do that for me, right?" He forced her gaze back to his.

It took a moment for Tracy to nod. "Yes, okay," she repeated and leaned over to hug him.

They stayed that way for a long while, during which she also told him. "You'll win. You're the hero of this story."

* * *

"Michael, why did you bring me up here," Wendy asked, feeling exhilarated but a little frightened too, as her boyfriend led her by her arm up a long staircase of a building he had driven them to in downtown Los Angeles.

"You'll find out," was all he said.

After several minutes of running up the endless steps, they made it to the door on the top. The air felt a little chilly, but Michael kept her tightly wrapped in one of his arm as he walked them over to the edge of the roof.

"Alright, you're acting like a crazy person," she implied. "What's going on?"

"Do you trust me?" he asked. That was a stupid question on his part.

"Yes, of course."

"Good, come one." He jumped onto the ledge and offered his hand out; she took it after only a moment of thinking it over and hopped onto the ledge next to him.

They were fifteen stories above the ground, overlooking the busy street below looked insignificant, all the cars zooming by and people steadily moving passed like bugs. They were in the middle the city's largest buildings, beautiful in their twinkling-night light.

The pull of gravity was making Wendy's legs shake; she looked at Michael, who was maintaining his smile. He pointed out to another building that stood a block away in their view, and was about the same height as the one they were on.

"Do you see that building over there? The roof is locked up after nine, complete privacy," he explained.

"And you brought me up here to me tell me that?' she didn't sound cynical but kept a skeptic attitude.

"I don't know what it feels like to fly, but I can imagine it pretty well." He picked up her legs without warning, and Wendy grabbed a hold of his neck with both arms, knowing what he was going to do.

"Don't worry, I'll break fall just in case," and Michael leaped. The speed of jump didn't bother Wendy, she stayed amazed by the sight of the street below as they moved over it without the like hardly any human being had ever done before.

It was only mere seconds in-between there jumping from the first roof to arriving onto the second one. Michael eased her back onto her feet, which were now relaxed. Wendy looked around and saw what had been waiting for her here: Michael had set up a private picnic for them, with a blanket, basket, a bouquet of flowers, and yet to be lit candles.

"You did all this for me," she said in amazement.

"You're worth all the effort." They walked to the setup arm-in-arm. "I didn't get wine, but I hope you like apple cider."

"That's a good choice," she assured him, but she soon stopped short of sitting down on the blanket. "Michael, are you doing this because you think you might-"

He stopped her in mid-sentence. "Whatever happens tomorrow, I just want you to know, you made these last two months the most amazing, more than my abilities have - or at least next my abilities - top three, for sure."

She laughed, lightly throwing a fist at his shoulder. "You'll beat this, because you're the one who cares about people and helps them with your powers, not hurt them."

She stroked the side of his hair back and kissed him warmly for a long minute. "I love you, Michael Mules."

"Ditto."

So for that night, they forgot about the dangers that lay ahead and what could possibly come of it, and stayed on the moment, which was the two of them.

__

To Be Continued


	19. Hero Part 2

Chapter 19 "Hero - Part 2"

* * *

On this morning, of June 23rd, 2006, Michael Mules awoke with one thought in his mind - death.

This could be it, the day he no longer breathed, the day his life came to an end; most would not move with this prediction, but he somehow managed to get out from his bed, showered, dressed, and left his house for what could be the last time, ignoring the desire to sneak a peak at his sleeping family.

As he drove down his street in the quiet and brisk day, he thought that maybe he was exaggerating with these predictions - but then he reminded himself that the note was meant to be threatening, and the past actions of this woman didn't mean she was talking about a nice chat over coffee between them.

He knew he could very well be heading towards his demise, but it had to be. This woman had nothing but bad intentions for him and possibly everyone who was to attend his high school graduation.

He didn't really know where he was supposed to be and when to be there, but he did have a destination. If Michael was being watched, then she would know that he would be waiting for her to come.

In a few minutes, he reached his school, which stood deserted. Across the street from one side was a dirt road that led to a rocky hilltop overlooking the school; the only thing in that sight was a deserted truck hauling a large tank at the bottom of the hill.

The drive up that road only took a minute. At the hilltop, Michael stepped out of the car and just stood beside it, gazing at the view of the school and the surrounding area, including downtown, where he and Wendy had been the previous night.

__

I'm sorry I couldn't stay there with you, forever.

The thought that he wouldn't see her face again, feel her touch, hear her, smell her - Michael shook head fiercely. If there was going to be victory on his side, then Wendy couldn't be in his thoughts. What was it he read in a Star Wars book about JedI in battle - attachments can be both a strength and a weakness.

__

Maybe I haven't mature enough for this. I'm still taking life lessons from movies and books that have laser swords and magic wands.

But those were the best things that he had in which to learn from about being the good guy.

Time continued to pass; Michael looked to the football stadium where he could see the stage now setup and ready, with banners and balloons strapped up and hung. The graduates would be seated right in front of it; while there families and friends would sit in the stands.

Would he even get to be there tonight? He had continued to imagine himself walking across that stage and accepting his diploma, people cheering as his name was pronounced.

This was supposed to be one of the greatest days of his life, but instead Michael was just feeling dread

They could all end up not getting to celebrate if this woman got her way. So it meant either it would just be him or everyone who suffered today, and what did a real hero do?

__

Make that ultimate sacrifice.

More time passed and Michael wondered if he had gotten it wrong; was she going to just pop up during the graduation and attack? He wished this would just happen already.

His ears then heard the calm heart beat of a person coming close from somewhere. Was it her? Michael closed his eyes and just waited; listening to the heart beat getting louder and being joined by footsteps on the dirt ground.

He just breathed and stood still, eyes staying closed, waiting.

Soon enough a lightly familiar voice sounded from behind him. "So the longer you stayed here, the more I thought of how this kid likes to just stand in places quietly to gaze around - but then I figured out that you were waiting for me to show up."

His eyes opened and he slowly turned away from the sight of the school: the woman from the sketch drawing stood just a few feet away from the other side of the car; she was about the same height as Michael, with red hair cut down to her shoulders, well built.

Before now, his image of her settled on a rough, scorned looking woman - but instead, here stood a seemingly pleasant person, with a plain shirt and blue jeans. She just didn't fit the part of a bad guy, but looks were deceiving, of course.

"I'm glad to see you took my note seriously," she said, acting like she was a good friend of his.

He didn't move, staying where he was for now kept the car between them. It took a few seconds for him to speak back. "You're the fire woman."

"Sorry, I guess you haven't been able to identify me under anything else." She bowed her head, slightly. "My name is Tina, and you're Michael Mules, resident iof Los Angeles, scheduled to graduate high school within twelve hours - and secretly has the power of enhanced physical attributes, senses, reflexes, and such."

"How do you know about me?"

She smiled rather warmly.

"It's my job. I can explain it all to you right here, right now. Do you want to sit down," she said, stepping against a large boulder.

"I'm not stepping anywhere near you," he proclaimed, not moving an inch.

"Come on, Michael, haven't you been wondering about these things you can do?" she asked with patience. "You have questions that I can answer. Your abilities, with time, they can grow and you'll become more skilled with them."

Was she actually behaving as if her past deeds hadn't occurred? Michael couldn't believe this woman. His outraged made him move around the car.

"And who's going to teach me, you? No thanks. I wouldn't go anywhere with you, after what you've done."

"Those accidents… were to see if you had guts," Tina told him. "I needed to know if you could handle your powers."

"You put people's lives in danger." He could no longer hide his disdain for her. "And you did it to test me. You're disgusting, no matter how different you act from it."

"Michael, it's best for you to come with me peacefully right now," she said, now in a cold manner, "or I'm going to have to be forceful."

She brushed her hand over the boulder, leaving behind a trail of black on it. "You see I have the power of a volcano, I can create molten hot lava out of the palm of my hand. The fire I threw at you from my car is just a small flicker of my power."

The black streak on the boulder where Tina had brushed her hand became a scarlet red, flickering and oozing a bit.

"It's going to have to be the hard way, Tina," he said without a hint of fear in his voice, and scowling at her name.

"Fine then." Tina extended her arm, shooting out fire. The ball of flame came at Michael so fast that he barely managed to dodge it, rolling over the hood of the car and ducking behind it. More balls of flames soared over the car and fell closely around him.

"Come on, Michael," Tina shouted from the other side. "You need have a better plan than to hide from me."

She threw more balls of fire, one coming in so close that some sparks bounced onto one of Michael's shoes.

"I can just walk around or blow the car into ashes," she continued to say.

Alright, this was going to be a fight - no doubt about it - so Michael would need a plan. If he got too close, she would fry him to a crisp. _Maybe a distraction._

Another set of flames came down around him, so without another thought of doubt, he opened the front passenger's door wide enough to reach his arm in. His hand scoured the floor under the seat until he felt a cold metal in his fingers; he quickly grabbed a hold of it, and pulled his arm out, with a metal bat in hand.

More balls of flame came down, with Tina becoming more accurate; Michael moved around the car kneeled down.

"Michael," Tina scowled. "Just say you'll come with me."

"Go to hell!"

Michael stood up from the back of the trunk, grinding his teeth as he threw the bat directly towards Tina. He waited only a second after throwing the bat to jump onto the trunk and leap out into the air.

The bat provided all the distraction he needed; Tina became preoccupied by reaching out and grabbing it. The bat exploded into a burning piece of shard, which she dropped on the ground - and Michael crushed onto her a moment later. They rolled on the ground, and Michael swung a hand into her face once they stopped, his knuckles making impact with her nose.

Her hands, which were holding the zippers of his sweater erupted into flames, forcing him to push himself away. Both stood back up, and Michael braced himself for an attack.

Now Tina had the appearance of the deadly attacker of innocents that he always imagined before, with her faced dirt stained and a her nose dripping blood; when she raised her hands, they into fire.

Now it was up to instincts. Michael jumped to the side as Tina swung one arm downward and then swung the other close to his waste after he darted away again. She continued to throw fired punches and he managed to continue dodging them.

Her swings and stabs became more quick - not to mention rough by each attempt; he knew he couldn't keep avoiding them. In a heavy swing, Michael stepped to his right, causing Tina to nearly fall forward, and he swung his leg into her stomach, dropping her onto the ground.

The woman grasped her hands against the dirt and it began to burn dark around her, followed by it's melting into red liquid; this caused Michael to move back. Tina dugs her hands into the small bits of the burned ground, stood up and charged towards him.

Her punches were now directed solely at his face, with the piles of burning dirt in her hands now turned into red-burning rock. Michael started to block Tina's punches, pushing her arms away with his, careful to avoid the hands and the molten rocks.

He took a hold of her wrists, forcing them away, but Tina raised one of her legs and kicked him in the right elbow, causing his grip on her arm to break loose, and she wasted no time in slashing him on that same arm with the piece of rock.

Even though Michael cried out in pain, he still took action and took her by the torso and tossed her to the side.

Now Tina gripped on the pieces of rock with her best of might; they broke instantly into sparkling dust, and leaving behind a bit of smoke in the air.

"Had enough?" Tina asked rather calmly.

"Don't talk at all," he growled over his arm's burning sensation.

Tina charged with only one flaming hand, which Michael avoided on the first swing and then forced his whole body onto hers, getting them both off their feet - and over the edge of the hilltop.

In the roll down the rock infested and dirt covered hill, Michael managed to eventually catch his footing and slowly and painfully stopped his further descent. Tina continued a bit longer before grabbing onto a boulder; both of them took a few moments to catch their breaths.

They wouldn't be able to continue this on unstable ground, so Michael leaped out of the steep setting and landed down at the bottom, where the road led back to the street and his school.

At that same time, Tina had burned the boulder she stopped herself with and pushed out of its hold into the hill, down towards where Michael just landed. He barely managed to jump away and landed on his back, feeling the hard fall with his body till aching from the roll down the hill.

"You're not doing your classmates any favors," Tina shouted. "I beat you and then they go away flames."

"What?"

Tina slowly started making her way down to the road while saying, "That truck right there, it has two hundred pounds of gasoline that will be running into your fellow graduates in the middle of the ceremony, in flames, courtesy of me."

He looked over to the truck and cursed himself for disregarding it earlier; she was planning to hurt everybody. Like he had suspected.

"You can stop it by coming with me, now," Tina told him. "Or you can learn your lesson to obey me the hard way. They don't have to die for you."

He looked back to her as she finally made it off the hill, examining the woman's torn jeans, bleeding nose and burning eyes, also Michael then looked down at himself; hands and legs bruised from the fall, sweater slightly burned and one arm scorched between the elbow and shoulder.

Had this fighting gotten him anywhere? Was going with her the best solution? Images surfaced from his mind of Mary Jameson's terrified face, the two unconscious classmates in prom, and the hotel residents running for the dear lives - all repeatedly played in his head.

"And what? Put other people's lives in danger to test others like us, no. I'll take my chances in beating the pulp out of you - or die for so they can live."

Her hands became fist of fire once more.

"Have it your way."

_To Be Continued_


	20. Hero Part 3

Chapter 20 "Hero - Part 3"

* * *

Tina set her hands into flames again and approached Michael with a glare of hostility.

- suddenly a burst of water collapsed on the back of her head. She turned around, Michael looking her gaze to where Wendy and Wendy were standing, Tracy holding a bucket filled with water balloons.

"What are you two doing here?"

"Helping you, dumbass," Wendy barked.

"You have got to be kidding me." Tina nearly erupted in laughter, her fire seizing. She looked back to him, shaking her head. "These are your reinforcements. As I recall, you had to save their hides back at the hotel."

"Don't think we've forgotten that," Tracy shouted at the woman.

"And you seemed so nice that day we talked," Tina said almost kindly.

"Keep away from them," Michael growled, charging at her, arm swinging into her cheek bone.

Her hands became fist of fires once again; when she eyed him, he now saw a glare of disdain on the woman. "You nearly broke my face, there. I'm not letting that go."

Now Michael was in a trance of utter movement, for her attacks were came to him faster and more violently. Tracy and Wendy began throwing as many water balloons as possible, but it was obvious from the start that their efforts were pointless.

Michael had become so focused on Tina's arms, that he didn't expect her to spin her leg down below and trip him onto his back. She would have thrown her flaming knuckles onto him had Wendy and Tracy not thrown some accurate balloons onto her head, causing Tina to shift attention towards them.

"Give us what you've got, bitch!" Wendy shouted.

"You asked for it."

Tina put her hands together and smashed them onto the ground. The earth in front of her became an eerie red, moving rapidly in an almost conscious manner towards the two girls. Wendy quickly grabbed Tracy by the arm and pulled her away from what quickly erupted into a burning hot spot.

Tina put her hands together again and released a cloud of fire towards them; Wendy once more managed to pull Tracy and herself away, barely avoiding the flames and falling to the ground.

Michael used that distraction to drop Tina onto the ground by taking her legs into his and yanking them out from under her.

"Leave them alone," he growled once more.

He needed a plan - and fast. _Think, you need to stop her, now. _Michael examined the surroundings, looking for what he remembered to be around here somewhere. He spotted it behind Tina, twenty feet away, a fire hydrant that he hoped to God was not empty or disconnect.

Tina swung her arm at Michael, he barely rolled away from; they both stood, Tina's hands more lit up than ever, now nothing about her appearance was kind or friendly at all.

"Just come with me, now, Michael," she growled. "Nobody has to get hurt."

"Yes, they will, if I become like you, and we do this to other people," he said.

"We're part of a bigger plan, you have to except that."

He shook his head. "You're part of the problem, so I know where I have to be."

Once again, Tina charged at him with one arm ready to attack. This time, Michael flipped over her in midair and when he landed behind her, he punched her hips, causing Tina to yell out in pain.

Off to their side, Tracy and Wendy could only watch Tina turn around, ignoring her pain and carry on with her attacks from all directions. Michael jumped, ducked, and continued to narrowly avoid those flames, backing away step-by-step. It was becoming much more difficult, with Tina was becoming more wild by the second.

Then he tripped onto his back against the fire hydrant, making Tina believe that she had him; she raised one arm and swung downward, but Michael jumped to the side and her eyes went wide, seeing as her hands smashed open the top of the fire hydrant.

Michael came around in a fast motion, taking her by the elbows, and forcing her entire body onto the hydrant, keeping her against the powerful force of the water. Her flames disappeared, evaperating some of the water as it did so. He finally dropped her beside to the ground after a short while, where Tina stayed limb, coughing out gulps of water.

"This is done," Michael declared, also now dripping in water, kneeling over her, the hydrant still exploding in water. "You either leave now, or I drown you."

"I guess you proved yourself," Tina said between her coughs. "Congratulations."

"What? What are you talking about?" Tracy and Wendy came running up behind Michael; he remained kneeled down over the limb woman.

"The fire at the Jameson's, you hearing me in the alleyway and from your car that night," she explained. "They were all tests, to see if you had guts and showed promise. Today was the final one and you passed"

"For what?" he asked out of breath.

"For what?" Tina sounded as if the answer was standing right in front of him and he was simply blind. "What you can do - what I can do; we have a greater purpose, Michael. There are more out there in the world with powers. The people I work with, you can be one of us."

"You're part of what, a cult?" Wendy asked her.

"An organization." Tina steadily rose to a seating position, causing Michael to extend his arms in front of both girls behind him for protection. "If you join us, we can show you so much."

"You're the ones that abducted me," Michael said, feeling the need to remind her of that. "You strapped me onto a table, probed me or did who knows what."

"All part of understanding your abilities."

"Did you ever think of knocking on my door?" he howled, the rage bursting from inside him like a volcano - or her power. "How about saying hi and explaining it all to me like a civilized person, instead of kidnapping and putting people's lives in danger."

"That's not how you fit people like us for our roles in the world," Tina argued.

"You're sick, and vial," Michael growled shaking his head with disbelief. "I don't want you or anybody else to make tests like these, it sickens me."

"You have to learn like this, Michael," she argued forcefully "You have to understand that we are part of something greater."

He shook his head. "No, I won't be part of this. You're willing to hurt others to do your job or whatever this is to you, people who don't deserve it."

Now she was shaking her head at him. "You're so young and naive."

"He isn't," Wendy growled to the woman, with the same fury and disdain as Michael. "You're horrible and cold, with no remorse for what you do."

"You're a villain," Tracy added calm and simply.

"Leave me, my family, and everybody that I know alone," Michael said to her, now standing up, with a finger pointed down to her. "If I so much as hear a heartbeat from you or one of your people nearby - and I will - I'm coming after you, and tell your organization the same thing."

Tracy and Wendy backed up as Tina stood onto her feet, but Michael didn't move at all. He stood his ground, not a hint of fear or repression of his disgust towards this woman.

"We wanted to see if you were ready," Tina said calmly, reverting back to her pre-battle character, "obviously you're not. We'll leave you alone for now, but we won't be forgetting about you."

He said nothing to this.

"For now, it's goodbye Michael Mules."

The woman slowly turned and walked down the dirt road, not glancing back to them once, or spinning around for a surprise attack. Neither he or the girls let their gaze drift away from her until she disappeared from sight onto the street.

When they felt safe, the three started back up the large hill to Michael's car.

"What now?" Wendy asked.

"She said they'll be back," Tracy pointed out.

"We'll worry about that when the time comes," Michael assured her, rubbing at his hurting stomach. "Right now, though, there's one more thing I need to get ready for today; luckily this will just take a shower, nap, first-aid, and some food."

* * *

On that night, the football stands were piled with the families and friends of the three hundred graduates sitting on the track field. Michael Mules sat at the last row of one side, staying quiet for the most part of the ceremony. His classmates sitting around him would talk to him briefly, but none knew him well.

In the next row, a few seats to his left, Mark was sitting with his entourage of friends; he glanced over to Michael once or twice, in which they nodded to each other. There wasn't anything left to be said between the two. Wendy was sitting beside Tracy, and she would be coming with him on his senior trip, in which they would discuss heavily during the bus drive on his next step.

During the entire ceremony, Michael only thought about everything that had come to pass in the last two months. So much had changed and yet there was still a lot that had stayed the same.

He didn't really know where he would be going from here.

There were still unanswered questions, which were joined by new ones brought on by Tina and her organization. They weren't done with him, he was sure of that to be the truth from her. Would this mean more danger for his loved ones? Whatever the case, Michael was resolved to keep this danger contained, so that meant not telling anybody else in his family anything, for now.

He tried calling Dr. Suresh once more after the fight, but there was still no answer. Perhaps that should be one of his tasks: Going to New York and seeing him face-to-face again, if he was still there. Maybe that Gabriel Grey he mentioned had had similar experiences as Michael.

He wondered if Tina was still scolding around, watching him, or another one of her people were now in her place. He did understand that sooner or later, he would have to deal with them again.

__

What are you guys planning?

* * *

__

DANIEL LINDERMAN - LAS VEGAS

The elevator door opened and Mr. Linderman stepped out, listening into his cell phone with his business face on, his whole life was a business now. He walked across the art room where he kept dozens of paintings that he collected from the gifted Isaac Mendez.

While most just saw works of art, few knew that they were prophecies of numerous people and stories that Linderman was set on controlling for good measures.

"I'm glad to hear that Mister Mules proved himself to have potential," he said solemnly. "Yes, I am sure about not bringing him in, yet, Mister Thompson. I still need to ponder over what Michael's role in the world will be."

As Thompson spoke, Mr. Liderman continued his walk through a series of framed paintings at the corner of the room, looking for the ones that had been setup somewhere around here.

"In the meantime, setup a plan for the Walker family," he instructed, "one of them could be a person of great interest to us. Goodbye then."

Linderman hung up the phone and looked to the back of two framed paintings that had just been placed there. He walked around and stopped in front of them, crossing his arms, thinking heavily on what they meant.

The painter, Isaac, didn't always predict certain futures. It seemed that time it was like a tree and could sprout into various random futures, some more certain than others. This was one of those yet undecided futures.

In these two paintings were the same thing but opposite of each other: one showing an older Michael Mules, dressed entirely in black, standing in front of an unknown city, the day was bright and seemingly peaceful - the other, however, had Michael looking more threatening and vicious, with hostility in his look, and the city behind him was dark, and in ruins.

Daniel Linderman stayed there, examining the two paintings for some time.

* * *

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A hero can be a anyone, but it's not something you are born as, it's what you choose to be. Whether you desire it, stumble upon it, or see it as your responsibility, it is a title that must always be fought for, because it is an unbalance step, but has great meaning. Everyone can be a hero in their own story.

- Michael Mules, Journal Entry

It was night by the time Michael walked across the stage and accepted his diploma; there was much applause when his name was called, especially coming from his family and Wendy. He smiled, feeling like he was on top of the world at this one moment.

Once all the diplomas were handed out and all graduates were seated again, the principal presented to the audience the class of 2006 and there was infinite cheer. The caps were thrown into the air, and there were infinite hugs and handshakes. Michael shook hands with numerous former classmates, including Mark; he was also soon greeted by Wendy in an embrace.

Whatever was to come for him in his, he would face it and do his best.

_The End_

**I would like to thanks all who read my story and enjoyed it. I put a lot of time and work into this fanfic, and hope my nest one to be an even better one. It's my intention to continue Michael's story, so keep a look out. Thanks for reading.**

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